Martin Laurie
Author of Cupids War and The journals of a Victorian Traveller
Books
Cupid's War: The true story of a horse that went to war.
Cupid is the moving and inspiring true story of a war horse, one of many thousands that were shipped across the English Channel a hundred years ago to play their part on the Western Front during the First World War. Cupid had been a father’s gift to his 15-year-old son, and when war broke out father, son and horse found themselves facing the horrors of the conflict together. They did not all return. Martin Laurie is the grandson of the young man who owned Cupid and rode her to war. With the aid of his grandfather’s letters and family documents and photographs, he has pieced together an astonishing story.
Available to buy through Amazon WHSmith
PRESS: Telegraph, Mail Online, Express
The Journals of a Victorian Traveller: From the Journals of Julia Errington Biddulph 1844-1933
The Journals of a Victorian Traveller contains the transcribed and edited journals of Julia Biddulph who travelled the world with her husband during the last two decades of the 19th Century. The journals had remained unread since being rescued from the ruins of a bombed house in Canterbury during the Second World War. Julia Biddulph was a daughter of the Empire; her husband was a soldier and Political Agent in India. Julia's first journey to India in the 1860s had taken seven weeks. Within thirty years she records her record voyage from Charing Cross, London to Bombay in thirteen days and six hours. She had a great enthusiasm for life and preferred to take part, rather than watch from the side-lines, which would have been the easy option for ladies in similar circumstances to her own. The book is first-hand history; Julia records in her journals her day-to-day life from 140 years ago, some of the events that she witnessed would hardly seem possible, or even acceptable in today's world.
Available to buy through Amazon, WHSmiths, Waterstones
The Author
Martin Laurie is the author of Cupid's War and The Journals of a Victorian Traveller. Both books tell fascinating true stories taken from journals and letters written by ancestors of Martin. They open windows back in time; first hand history of events, some of which would hardly seem possible or even acceptable in todays world.
Martin Laurie was born and raised in Essex where he worked as a farmer in a family partnership for over thirty years. Of the journals he says, "I have always had a fascination with history and after reading the journals, I realised that they might be of interest to a wider audience. When reading the journals or diaries of an individual from many years ago, you are transported into their life; what they saw, touched and even smelt; it is first hand. You can agree or disagree, approve or disapprove of what they wrote, but you cannot alter the fact that that it is history. The journals were written by my ancestor, Julia Biddulph (1844-1933)."
"You can agree or disagree, approve or disapprove of what they wrote,
but you cannot alter the fact that it is history."