NORTHUMBERLAND’S MILITARY HERITAGE, by Neil R. Storey. Published by Amberley Publishing (www.amberley-books.com). £14.99. Softback.

THE author, an award-winning social historian, hails the military heritage of Northumberland as one of the richest in all the British Isles. As England’s northernmost county, its borders have seen many bloody clashes and battles and it boasts the forts and fortified settlements of Hadrian’s Wall.

The first Viking raid was carried out upon Lindisfarne in 793, there were clashes with the Scots for centuries and from the 13th century and for 400 years afterwards there were border raids by reivers. The Battle of Newburn in 1640 was one of the flashpoints which led to the English Civil War, and many noble Northumberland families were ruined in the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion.

The book acknowledges that Northumberland has produced a special breed of fighting men who were the backbone of the British Army including the regiments of the Coldstream Guards, King’s Own Scottish Borderers and the Northumberland Fusiliers. All served with distinction wherever they fought – from the Peninsular War through to South Africa, two World Wars and beyond.