A. R. Lloyd (1927–2018)

It's the 1940s in the south of England, there's a war on in France, and London is being bombed. Wilf Tuck, hedging one of his fields near the New Forest, comes upon a hungry stray dog and takes him home. Zac (his name is on his collar!) is a mongrel with more than a little bit of collie in him, and he quickly becomes a valuable asset on the farm. Before he knows it, the gruff workaholic Wilf has given his heart to the dog. But there is something mysterious about Zac. While this story is show more definitely about Zac, the human characters in the book actually have lives of their own. They are not just props against which Zac plays out his role. There's depth here, and the story has its share of humor and sadness, and even a few surprises. A positive addition to any sheepdog library. show less

Decent enough account. A little confusing in places as he switches between characters and in many ways it's a bit more "boys own" than proper history, but an easy enough read and worth it if you're interested in this sort of stuff.

Lloyd examines the lives of three ambitious men,Harold Godwinson,William The Conqueror and Harald Hardrada as they vied and fought to determine who would be King.Shows the environment that produced the men involved in Anglo-Saxon England, Scandinavia, and feudal Normandy. Evidence has been brought from a wide range of subjects - food, drink and agriculture, arms, costume and ship construction, superstition, legend and local history.

The war fought on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 has no precedent in history. It was a war between two stubborn enemies, each dug into the wet earth of Northern France and Belgium and facing each other across a merciless no-man's land. In a single day of trench warfare the British lost more men than their battle casualties of the Crimean and Boer wars combined, and far more than their worst losses for any day in World War II.