The last fighting Tommy: the life of Harry Patch, last veteran of the trenches, 1898-2009 (Centenary anniversary edition.)

On 17 June 2009, Harry Patch celebrated his 111th birthday. At the time, he was the last living British Tommy that had fought in the trenches of the First World War. Now that direct link with the past has gone. From his vivid memories of an Edwardian childhood, through the horrors of the battles of Ypres and Passchendaele to working on the home front in the Second World War and fame in later life as a veteran,The Last Fighting Tommyis the story of an ordinary man's extraordinary life.As we mark one hundred years since the beginning of the Great War, this powerful account of a life defined by those four devastating years remains as important and relevant as ever.