Every so often, I come across a biography or autobiography of a man whose life suddenly makes my own seem so very tedious and small. This is one of them. Stewart Blacker's story as told through his previously unpublished memoirs is truly extraordinary. In truth, only a fraction of it relates to the Great War (some 50 pages or so) but it makes for a most fascinating read.

Perhaps Blacker's most important contributions were the development of the synchronised machine gun that eventually helped overcome the Fokker scourge in the 14-18 war, the Blacker Bombard with which the Home Guard was equipped early in WW2, the Petard - one of the devices fitted to Hobart's Funnies for the liberation of France in 1944 - and the PIAT anti tank weapon. These were all undoubtedly novel developments that took considerable effort to get past the hidebound authorities at the War Office and elsewhere. The story of each is briefly told; but they form a relatively small part of the life story of this man.

A speaker of numerous asian languages, he served with the infantry of the Indian Army and the Royal Flying Corps in the years before and during the Great War. He was on an expedition across the Himalayas into China in August 1914, and indeed his descriptions of several such expeditions into this terribly inhospitable terrain then and during the complex manoeuvring against the Red Army after the war form the core of his story. He saw service at Neuve Chapelle in 1915, and was injured and wounded on a number of occasions.

I could not tell - and was not told in the preface or sleeve notes - of how and when he compiled the memoir. There are one or two hints that it might have been written up, perhaps from memory, a considerable time after the event. For example, he refers to German anti aircraft fire in the Great War as the Kaiser's Flak. I believe that the term Flak was not in use at the time. These things might irritate the purist but did not in truth detract from a good "Boy's Own" tale.

At the end of the book is a colection of "two liner" biographies of the characters mentioned, and there are a few other useful things such as a list of Indian Army ranks. These I presume are additions by Stewart's grandson end editor, Barnaby Blacker. The book has no index.