A Hundred Years to Arras

On 9th April 1917, over twenty thousand allied troops emerged from underneath the French town of Arras to mount a surprise attack on German positions outside Arras and up to Vimy Ridge.

Men from Britain, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand had toiled for months in the quarries beneath the buildings of Arras, tunnelling out a labyrinth in which they would live, laugh and plan until the day came to emerge into that painful, freezing April morning.

Private Robert Gooding Henson of the Somerset Light Infantry is stationed outside of Arras with his brigade and is launched into the battle, where he is separated from his company and ends the day defending Hervin Farm at St Laurent Blangy.

Robert is twenty-three years old, a farmer?s boy from Blindwell Farm in Somerset, and the novel tracks his journey from joining up against his father?s wishes in 1915 to his training in Northern France to his death as a result of wounds in April 1917.