Not so, as Norfolk author and former journalist Sara Barton-Wood discovered while working at the Norfolk Record Office.
There she found original letters, diaries and memoirs of Sir James Neville of Sloley Hall in North Norfolk which had never been seen before, and which give a distinctive Norfolk twist to the end of the Edwardian era, the wartime years and after.
“I was immediately struck by the huge range of experiences he packed into his life,” she explained.
“Especially the early years when he served in the trenches, then after the war in Russia, Northern Ireland and even in Sudan.
“He wrote so vividly, and often movingly, and his diaries give a uniquely personal first-hand account of some of the most significant events of the early 20th century.
“It may be a cliché, but he really does bring history to life!”
Even as a small boy, James was a keen photographer.
Armed with a brownie box camera he recorded family picnics on Happisburgh beach, sailing at Barton Broad, jogging along the loke in their pony and trap and (later) learning to drive in his uncle’s Swift model motor car nicknamed Howling Herbert.
He home-developed and printed his growing collection of photos and carefully mounted and labelled them in a series of albums now held at the Norfolk Record Office.
Sara’s new book “Sir James Neville: War and Peace – a Norfolk Soldier Abroad and at Home” is copiously illustrated with many of James Neville’s original photos.
James was born in 1897 and his early years were split between the family’s London and Norfolk homes.
It was a privileged upbringing (his father Reginald was a barrister who served as MP for East Norfolk in the 1920s and was created a baronet in 1927).
James was schooled at Eton, leaving in 1916 to go straight to Sandhurst and then to the Western Front in France as a junior officer.
He served with distinction, was wounded (though not seriously), promoted to captain and awarded the MC for gallantry.
He was also a gifted writer who recorded his feelings and experiences in his diaries and heart-felt letters to his father and sisters.
Whatever the horrors he encountered – which he wrote about unflinchingly, albeit a bit ‘gung-ho’ to modern ears – he never forgot his family back in Norfolk.
But how could he? His ever-affectionate father wrote almost every day and regularly sent parcels out to the trenches with treats like clotted cream and home-made cakes, or strawberries and asparagus from the kitchen gardens at Sloley.
Sara’s new book draws on James Neville’s own writings to tell the story of his earlier life until 1932 when he married and settled into the more mundane life of a Norfolk country gentleman.
The book is attractively presented by Poppyland Publishers and illustrated with many of Neville’s own photos as well as maps and illustrations from other sources.
It is available from local bookshops, Poppyland Publishers or Amazon, price £20.95. ISBN 978-1-909796-99-7.
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