Sue’s book:
KENILWORTH AND THE GREAT WAR

PERSONAL HOME PAGE | Family | Life | Photos | Music | Whisky | Links | ACADEMIC HOME PAGE
On Saturday, November 6th, 2004, KENILWORTH AND THE GREAT WAR by Susan Tall and Betty Sunley was published at a Book Launch at the Kenilworth Connection. The launch was attended by Pauline Edwards, the Mayor of Kenilworth, Andy King, the MP of Kenilworth, and Spencer Harrison, the President of the Kenilworth British Legion.

Below are press releases from The Evening Telegraph, Kenilworth Weekly News (reproduced on the KWN website) and The Kenilworth Observer.


The Evening Telegraph, Friday November 5th:

top of page


The above story appeared on the Coventry Evening Telegraph website in the form below on November 5th:
Great War victims' stories finally told

Nov 5 2004

By Duncan Gibbons

The poignant stories of the 139 servicemen and women of a Warwickshire town who died during the First World War are being told in a new book.
Kenilworth and The Great War - A Tribute to the Fallen has taken five years to research and write.
The 224-page epic includes full details, often with a photograph, of the residents who lost their lives serving their country between 1914 and 1918.
Among those who never came home to Kenilworth were 13 pairs of brothers, including George and Harry Mitchiner. Harry drowned when HMS Hampshire sunk in 1916.
The only local servicewoman who lost her life was Constance Seymour, aged 29, a nurse who died at a hospital in Aldershot in 1917.
The book also looks at life in the town before the war, and how normality was turned on its head as the men were shipped abroad and the women were left behind to try to hold society together.
It has been written by Susan Tall and Betty Sunley, both members of the Kenilworth Family History Society, who set out in 1999 to discover the people behind the names engraved on the town's war memorial, in Abbey Fields.
Mrs Tall said: "Every year, I gazed at these names on the war memorial and had no idea who these people were, what they did and what jobs they had.
"The idea of finding out really appealed to me.
"And once you see their faces, they suddenly become real people. They are not just names on a memorial any more.
"It has been a real journey of discovery - although we did have to stop sometimes because some of the stories are so awful."
The book is to be launched at the Kenil-worth Connection, in Abbey End, at 10am tomorrow.
MP Andy King will be there, along with town mayor Pauline Edwards and officials from the Royal British Legion.
The book has 224 pages and 140 photographs and costs £11.95.

For more details and an order form visit www.kenilworth-war-memorial.org.uk

Kenilworth Weekly News:



The above story also appeared on the Kenilworth Weekly News Website on Wednesday November 3rd, 2004:
Kenilworth's war heroes remembered in new book
Kenilworth's war years and heroes are remembered in a new book written by residents.
Susan Tall of Laburnum Avenue and Betty Sunley of Barrow Road have spent five years working on Kenilworth And The Great War: A Tribute to the Fallen. It will be launched tomorrow (Saturday).
It details every soldier killed during the First World War conflict and recaptures life in town during those years. Many relatives and town dignitaries will be present at the launch.
Mrs Tall said: "The book starts in Kenilworth in 1910 and ends when the Abbey Fields war memorial was built in 1921. An index lists all the men who died and tells their stories."
Many of the recent Weekly News nostalgia pictures have featured people who appear in the books, or who are related to them. Mrs Tall and Mrs Sunley are both members of the family history society and the book began there.
Mrs Tall said: "It all started as a millennium project idea. We decided to have a look at the names on the War Memorial. It ended up being a lot of hard work - sitting in the library for hours looking at microfilm and newspapers."
The launch is between 10am and noon at the Connection in Abbey End. MP Andy King, town Mayor Coun Pauline Edwards, members of the town's British Legion and relatives of men killed during the Great war will be there.

03 November 2004
top of page

Kenilworth Observer, Thursday November 4th.
These pages are enlarged below:



Sue gives a talk on the book at Kenilworth Rotary Club, Monday, November 15th 2004.

For more information about the book KENILWORTH AND THE GREAT WAR, click here.


top of page
PERSONAL HOME PAGE | Family | Life | Photos | Music | Whisky | Links | ACADEMIC HOME PAGE