It would be wrong to say I 'enjoyed' this book, as it's an utterly bleak portrayal of Laurie Lee's life as one of the miscellaneous band of European intellectuals and working-class idealists who fetched up in Spain to do their bit to help the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. These men spent much of their time hungry, often baffled, bored and ill-led. Winter was bruisingly cold, and the towns and villages where they existed with half-starving Spaniards had withered to a state worse than simple poverty. Trust was in short supply. The experience was depressing to those who'd gone to Spain fired by the wish to make a grand gesture and personal sacrifices.

No, I didn't 'enjoy' this book. But I'm glad I've read it as a contribution to my understanding of a bitter period of Spanish history. ( )

Glorious use of the language, and such a tragic story. Laurie Lee is one of the finest exponents of English whom I've read. One of those books that its worth reading for the language, let alone the subject matter. ( )

In As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, Lee had made his way to Spain. After travelling around the country before being evacuated home by the navy after the Spanish Civil War erupted. Back home in Gloucestershire Lee felt drawn to those fighting the Republican cause, and makes the decision to head back to Spain. Arriving in Perpignan in Southern France he is unable to find anyone to help him get across the border so decides to take a risk and cross the Pyrenees in a snowstorm.

After somehow making it safely across the mountains, he is arrested and imprisoned for being a spy. On the day that his execution was scheduled for, a chance encounter meant that he was released. Lee quickly joins the International Brigade, along with a motley rabble of men from all over the UK and other parts of Europe who felt drawn to the anti-fascist cause too. He was then given limited training, but was arrested again as a brief trip to Morocco when he was in Spain previously had made him a marked man.

He saw very little service, but did travel around to a few locations in the back of an army truck. After the first bombing of a town where he was staying, the realities of the harshness of war, stripped away any romantic notions that he may have still harboured about the fight that he had volunteered for. He has some very near misses, and the impression that you get from the Spanish is that they were not particularly enamoured about having soldiers of other nationalities there, as this was an internal fight that they had to go through. The book is written in Lee’s distinct eloquent style again, making this a pleasure to read even though the subject is not particularly savoury and a fitting end to the series. ( )

As a impressionable young man Lee wanted to fight alongside the Spanish as a volunteer during their civil war in 1937. He made the trek across the Pyrenees expecting Spain to welcome him to the conflict with arms wide open. Much to his surprise he was immediately arrested as a spy. So begins Lee's memoir of a naive coming of age in wartime Spain. Throughout this short little memoir Lee's disillusionment becomes stronger and stronger until when he is finally sent home he has this last parting shot: "Here were the names of the dead heroes, piled into little cardboard boxes, never to be inscribed later in official Halls of Remembrance" (p 174). Sad. ( )

A short but poetic addition to the previous autobiography. The author recounts his memories of a brief time in Spain fighting for the republicans against General Franco and the fascists. An interesting insight into the suspicion, banality and eventually swift brutality of modern war.

It felt like a very real experience, although reading the foreward after I'd finished the book there is some debate about whether or not it was. It was still a good read though and thought provoking in some of its insights. ( )