This is a facsimile of a book that came out in 1916, with an introduction by Arnold Bennett. The more senior of us may remember that this was No 10 in the Vintage Aviation Library republished by Greenhill Books in 1986, and was at that time stocked by the Society. Rosher was a sickly lad (asthma) who nevertheless volunteered for the RNAS, learnt to fly as a civilian, and then served mainly on home service with a couple of spells with the BEF in 1915. He took part in several of the bombing raids on Belgian targets, of which there are some vivid descriptions. He was killed in England flight testing a repaired aircraft in early 1916. I am sure that, if he had survived, he would have gone far in the service.

The letters are a charming revelation of the innocence and enthusiasm of a young middle class man of the time. He had no thought of the anguish he was causing his parents by writing of the crashes and deaths of his comrades, or of ‘going off tomorrow on a stunt more hazardous than ever’, in the same breath as writing of little girls in white communion dresses dancing in the streets – he treated the whole war as a game and did not live long enough to become disillusioned and bitter. Some of the more interesting letters are about the living conditions; letters from home took three days to get to his address ‘somewhere in France’ which would be difficult to match to-day! There are some interesting photographs of aircraft and people to complement the text. I enjoyed reading this book.