Home from the Hill

Hook came of age in an era when Britain sent its sons to the outposts of empire. On graduation from Sandhurst in the late 1930s he joined a cavalry regiment in India. Impatient because the mechanization of his regiment was delayed, he volunteered for service in New Guinea and later fought in Burma. He was also stationed in Germany, Hong Kong and Aden, with his longest stay in the Sudan. After military service, he was in charge of a game viewing lodge in Kenya, returning to England in 1984. Hook's depiction of life in his various stations could have been written by Kiplingpig-sticking in India, buffalo and elephant hunting in Africa, and polo everywhere, except that he was present at the death, not the flourishing of empire. (April)