War Underground

War Underground by Alexander Barrie is a clear, character-led factual narrative that tells the story of the tunnellers from inception to demob. It is also the story of how a larger than life engineering contractor John Norton Griffith persuaded Kitchener that clay-kicking sewerage tunnellers from Manchester could do their bit for the war. Two years were spent tracking down and interviewing tunnellers. Barrie researched the entire tunneller story in meticulous detail in the late 1950s and early 1960s. ‘War Underground’ was published in 1962. It remains a compelling read today.