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The Wipers Times: The Complete Series of the Famous Wartime Trench Newspaper [Hardcover]

Malcolm Brown
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Little Books Ltd (16 Jan 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1904435602
  • ISBN-13: 978-1904435600
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 25.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 216,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Product Description

Synopsis

Presents a reproduction of the "Trench" newspaper, which provided a satirical and subversive look at the First World War. This title also contains an introduction by Ian Hislop, the editor of "Private Eye".

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Customer Reviews

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4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In early 1916, Captain F.J. Roberts and Lieutenant J.H. Pearson salvaged an abandoned printing press from the ruins of Ypres in Northern France and started their own trench newspaper, written by and for the British Infantry. The initial title, 'The Wipers Times', says a lot about the audience they were pitching for - Wipers being the classic tommy's mispronunciation of the French town of Ypres.

That informality is continued throughout the paper, which set out to cast a satirical eye at the war and those who were (mis)running it. No target was sacred as the number of the paper's contributors grew. Every issue was chock full of limericks, humourous poems, fake advertisments and short stories that cocked a thumb at the Generals, at the public back home, at the Kaiser and the Germans.

There is a tendency to assume that the experiences of the British during the First World War were unrelentingly grim, but as the introduction in this collection says, we have become so convinced of the hell that we tend to forget there was laughter, and it was that laughter that made the hell bearable. This collection reminds us that the average soldier's response was far from being one of misery and self-pity but one of casual, cheery contempt for the authority that they served and a bull-headed defiance to be beaten down.

What we have here is essentially every edition of the said paper, with a short foreword by Ian Hislop and a rather nice introduction which puts the paper in context. It's fantastic to have the whole series of the paper reprinted at last under one cover. For those with any sort of interest in the British Army in France between 1914 - 1918 this is indispensable reading, words direct from the soldier's own mouths, as it were.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Wipers Times 13 Aug 2010
By Tom S
Format:Paperback
Wonderful compilation of the Wipers Times in its various formats (renamed when the authors moved on, e.g to become New Church Times when at Neuve Eglise). Reading it provokes a mix of laughter and compassion, but overall it gives a great insight into the attitudes of the day and the humour and "sticking it" views of the Tommies in circumstances that we can hardly imagine today.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Historical treasure 14 Dec 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Didn't realise, beforehand, that the entire run of Wipers Times was available between two covers. Primary sources rarely as accessible as this example
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