From wartime england to colonial Assam, from sapper training in India to jungle warfare in Malaya...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) February 2, 2012 -- Tea, Love and War, a true story told by David Mitchell, is split into three parts: the story of his mother, Mary , and her brother Stuart : Ann , David’s cousin, and David himself.

Stuart, working on a tea estate in the jungles of Assam, fathers a child by a teenage native woman. Stuart’s letters to his family in pre-war England vividly describe his life as a planter in colonial India but conceal his secret love life. When war breaks out, Stuart joins the Indian army, trains as a sapper and is posted to Malaya, blowing bridges in the desperate rearguard action against the Japanese invasion. Back in wartime England, his sister Mary marries Stuart’s best friend, Arthur, who decides to train as an army officer. Mary, now a young mother pregnant with her second child, tells of the year’s delay in hearing news of her brother’s death at the fall of Singapore. Before the child is born, she learns that Arthur has been killed in action in Italy.

The story switches to a jungle village in Assam where a small Anglo-Indian child named Ann fights her way through poverty and discrimination, always seeking the identity of her father and his family.

Tea, Love and War is a gripping true story, narrated by both Mary and Ann, that has been inspired by the fascinating stories of their lives. “My cousin Ann located us after her extraordinary forty-year search for her roots. This was the catalyst for researching not only her life history but that of her newly-discovered father: my uncle Stuart. I persuaded my mother, Mary, to write her own life history in a series of exercise books. She had preserved all the letters that Stuart had written home, together with many photographs. I realised that I had the material for a unique first-hand story of goodness emerging from wartime tragedy. This inspired me to carry out extensive research to chronicle the history of the Malayan campaign and to weave that into the narrative,” says David about writing the book.

A solicitor and former judge, David Mitchell is a trustee of a leading independent school and sits on various other committees. The author of the Bluffer’s Guide to both Law and Divorce, he was inspired to write this book by the extraordinary history of his newly discovered Indian family. David enjoys a variety of sport and hobbies, including golf, tennis, squash and chess. David is launching his book on 12th February 2012, the anniversary of the fall of Singapore.

publication date 1st March 2012
ISBN: 9781780880891 Price: £6.99

autobiography     book launch     David Mitchell     history     matador     Royal Engineer     Tea Love and War     Troubador Publishing Ltd