Men of Letters

The book tells the story of the Post Office Rifles during the First World War.[4] 12,000 men served with the unit during the course of the war,[5] across three battalions,[6] and around 1,500 of them were killed.[4] The book describes in detail the horror and suffering of the war[5] and Barrett writes about a man who was shot in the head by a former Post Office colleague before being suffocated by mud near Passchendaele.[7] He also describes the humour of life in the trenches,[6] including an incident in which some former postmen delivered mail to the Germans on the other side of no man's land by wedging them into carrots and throwing them across.[4]

Barrett's research for the book involved reading memoirs written by men who served with the Post Office Rifles, as well as their letters and diary entries from the time, held at the Imperial War Museum and the British Postal Museum & Archive.[1] He was in part inspired to write it after learning that his own great-great-uncle had fought alongside the Post Office Rifles at High Wood, although in a different London regiment.[1]

The book was positively reviewed by Christopher Hirst in the i,[4] Paul Pettengale in History of War magazine[5] and a reviewer in Britain at War magazine,[6] and received radio coverage on BBC Radio London,[8] BBC Radio Bristol[9] and BBC Radio Derby.[10]