Anniversary gift from my wife

Today is our thirty fifth wedding anniversary, and this morning my wife and I exchanged cards and gifts to celebrate the occasion.

Now my wife is easy to buy gifts for ... especially since she started to collect Pandora jewelry. All I have to do is to look at her online wish list, copy images of what is on the list onto my iPhone, and make a visit to the nearest branch. I then go through the 'Have you got one of these in stock?' conversation with the sales assistant as I show her the images ... et voila, mission accomplished!

Sue tells me that she does not have as simple a job as I do ... but this year she had a brainwave and bought me a book that she knew that I didn't have (I think that she checked my bookshelves beforehand) ... and it is exactly what I would have bought had I seen it.

A HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN 100 OBJECTS is one of those books that is an ideal bedside companion. As the name suggests, it is split up into one hundred short chapters, each of which describes an object from the First World War and its relevance to the history of the conflict. Some random examples include:

• The pen that signed the Ulster Covenant
• HMS Lance's 4-inch gun
• Austrian commemorative ribbons
• Nurse Cavell's secret diary
• The Soixante-Quinze field gun
• A Simplex trench locomotive
• Augustus Agar's boat

The book was written by John Hughes-Wilson, with the assistance of Nigel Steel (Imperial War Museum Consultant) and Mark Hawkins-Dady (Editor), and published by Cassell Illustrated and the Imperial War Museum (ISBN 978 1 84403 918 0). It is dedicated to the memory of the late 'Professor and Brigadier Richard Holmes CBE, TD, scholar, gentleman and soldier, patron and founder of the Guild of Battlefield Guides', who was possibly one of the best (if not the best) military historians the UK has had in a generation.

I am going to enjoy reading this book over the coming months ... especially because of the personal anniversary that it celebrates.