Jon Cooksey, editor of the excellent Battlefields Review magazine and author in 1986 of "Barnsley Pals", has produced a really super book here. He first saw some unusual photographs of the 1/5th Battalion, the York & Lancaster Regiment, when working on the "pals", which of course were two battalions of the same regiment.

Twenty years on and having identified the photographer as Henry - better known as Harry - Colver, a subaltern with the 1/5th, Jon has skilfully blended a narrative of the doings of the battalion with Harry's pictures. The result is tremendous, allowing us to follow the battalion from training in England and into the trenches of Flanders. Many individuals are named and one really gets a feeling of knowing this unit and the men who fought in it as you work through the book.

The clarity and quality of most of the photographs is excellent: the coverage of the front and support lines of the Fleurbaix and Yser Canal (Ypres) sectors is extensive. In 1915, these areas were not yet devastated: many buildings and trees remain. Not far behind the lines, the cafes, estaminets and camps, all of which are faithfully reproduced here.

Wonderful stuff, especially for a student of the 1/5th York & Lancaster, but for anyone wishing to see what trench conditions were really like in 1915. This book deserves to be widely read.

The photographer was killed in action in December 1915 and lies in Bard Cottage Cemetery.

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