from the library of British glaciologist & polar specialist Charles Swithinbank & inscribed on the title page with the words: "Charles with best regards Rich Rhodes James". Richard Rhodes James was born in Mandalay, Burma, in 1921, one of five children of an Indian Army officer. After his education at Sedbergh School and The Queen's College, Oxford, he returned to India in 1942 and joined the 3rd Gurkha Rifles. After the Chindit operations, in which he was mentioned in dispatches, he went on the expedition to repossess Malaya from the Japanese, and ended the Second World War in Java with the British occupying force. His brother was the Cambridge M. P. and historian, Robert Rhodes James, and was related to M. R. Jarnes, the antiquarian and ghost-story writer. This is a tale of a life few understand today: the human cost of Empire, where families were torn apart - a father seen once every four years - growing up in the 30's, a time much talked and written about by those who never knew it; a strange Oxford; the war at its most savage against an enemy like no other. And then communicating to a generation that knew not these things the values we had fought for. It is the story of one who found a faith and who after a life longer than most believed others should know about it. Over these years the East followed the author until he said goodbye to it in a special way. A tale of struggle, but of much fun and a humour that lights up its pages . You will discover after reading this book that these years have been worth recalling.