Friday, January 22, 2010

Tim Carew

The Last Warrior
by Tim Carew (Digit Books R467, 1961)
Martin Tonnard, in serious trouble with his Commanding Officer, is relegated to a tedious administration job in Aldershot. A friendly Brigadier from the War Office offers him the command of a company composed of military bad characters, which is being sent to an African colony where trouble is expected.
   
Arriving in the colony of Solkotrea, Tonnard finds an incompetent governor and a disagreeable and ruthless chief of police—and trouble brewing. When the revolt comes, Tonnard and his men are trapped in the Residency with no communication with the outside world. Under these circumstances Tonnard's genius for leadership comes into full play; and his men prove that a full conduct sheet is no handicap when things are really sticky.
Tim Carew was the pen-name of John Mohun Carew. born in Bury St Edmunds on 8 July 1921, the son of Peter Fitzwilliam Carew (a soldier) and his wife Joyce (nee Fortescue).

Carew attended Marlborough College in 1934-38 and then joined the British forces in 1939, serving with the Gurkha Rifles in India, Burma, Malaya and Indonesia, and with the Devon Regiment in Hong Kong and Malaya. He was awarded the Military Cross and Burma Star. He wrote of his experiences in the army in All This and a Medal Too (1954).

After ten years, he left the army and became a feature writer for the Sunday Express, Soldier magazine and Reveille, as well as contributing to the Evening Standard, Evening News, Daily Mail, English Digest, Men Only, British Army Journal, Wide World and other magazines.

He also wrote the screenplay for Laughing in the Sunshine (Ett kungligt äventyr), a Swedish/UK co-production starring Jean Anderson and Ragnar Arvedson, released in 1956.

Carew was married to Barbara Joan S. Shakespear on 1 December 1950. He died in Bracknell, Berkshire, on 3 September 1980.

Novels

Evens the Field. London, Constable, 1955.
Man for Man
. London, Constable, 1955.
Married Quarters. London, Constable, 1956.
The Last Warrior
. London, Constable, 1958.

Non-fiction

All This and a Medal, Too
. London, Constable, 1954.
The Fall of Hong Kong
. London, Anthony Blond, 1960.
The Vanished Army
. London, William Kimber & Co., 1964.
Korea: The Commonwealth at War
. London, Cassell, 1967; as The Korean War: The Story of the Fighting Commonwealth Regiments, London, Pan Books, 1970.
The Royal Norfolk Regiment: The Ninth Regiment of Foot
. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1967. The Longest Retreat: The Burma Campaign, 1942. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1969.
The Glorious Glosters. London, Leo Cooper, 1970. Hostages to Fortune. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1971.
How the Regiments Got Their Nicknames
, illus. Nicholas Bentley. London, Cooper, 1974.
Wipers. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1974.

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