Peace, £25 War and Whitehall

You can take what you see on the silver screen with a pinch of salt so where better to get the low-down on the reality of military life than straight from the horse’s mouth. The nag in question being Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, who started life in the Welsh Guards and SAS, going on tour in Aden, Malaya, East Africa, Cyprus and Northern Ireland. He ended up being Commander of NATO’s Northern Army Group and then Chief of the Defence Staff.

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