You’re in my good books for sending these volumes

UNEXPECTED gifts through the post are one of life’s great pleasures, especially books. Paul the postman brought me two such bounties this week.

One is a personal memoir of life as a national serviceman, from an octogenarian reader on Teesside.

The other, aimed at Coronation fever, is a powerful polemic against the monarchy and a programme for its replacement.

Let’s start with Two Years Out Of Our Lives, a 16-page booklet written by William Connor, 84, of Brookfield, Middlesbrough. It’s the story of his time in the Royal Army Pay Corps in the 1960s, as one of the last to do national service.

Lavishly illustrated with photos of his call-up papers and Army life – so it should be, given he’s a printer by trade – it’s an entertaining record of social history. And it reads more like a rewarding part of his life, rather than two years out of it.

He hasn’t forgotten much about his time in the Pay Corps.

Unlike some fellow soldiers, he wasn’t sent to war zones, unless you count playing football against coal miners in Halifax (possibly the next best thing).

Two Years Out is a heart-warming narrative of comradeship and the trials and tribulations of early married life as serviceman number 23806599 posted far away from home – just like my brother John a few years before William.

The second offering is Abolish the Monarchy: Why we should and how we will. It’s a 264-page argument for radical change by Graham Smith, head of campaign group Republic.

I’ve got through the introduction, which states “the monarchy is bad for Britain”, and will have a go at the rest. I’ll make my own mind up and talk about it later.