Empire and War

Having served in the Second Anglo-Boer War and, afterwards, in India, supporting the British Raj, Joe Rutherford and his marras, Mike, Jack and Fred return to Jarrow and their old way of life in shipbuilding. They marry and settle happily for a while until WWI erupts in mid-1914. As reservists, Joe and his friends feel duty-bound to sign up again, and re-join their old regiment, shipping out to the Western Front in France.

There they experience the horrors of this terrible conflict, spending a month and a day in the trenches, and charging across open, sodden fields under constant fire. Jack and Fred both lose their lives, and Joe and Mike are captured and taken to a series of POW camps, where they are to spend the rest of the war.

In the camps, Joe resumes his role as storyteller, relating not only his and Mike's own story but also those of the other prisoners, who arrive almost daily with their own tales.

After a failed attempt at escape, the two friends are moved to another camp, where conditions worsen, as they do for the German citizens. And even the care packages sent from home slow and come to a halt - but they are at least in touch with their loved ones, who are experiencing their own difficulties at home. Then, towards the very end, the emaciated and weakened prisoners, along with everyone else, are in danger from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

But Joe and Mike survive both the war and the pandemic and are finally transported to safety and medical treatment, then home. Reunited with their friends and families at the end of 1918, they do their best to return to everyday life.

In Book Three: Empire and Tyranny, the Great Depression and WWII arrive, and the families again find themselves struggling to survive...