Customer Reviews:
 What a find!!! An absolute treasure trove. October 17, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I don't usually read diaries but this caught my eye and I decided to give it a go as I generally read war books. From page one it became a treasure trove of snippets from a bygone era. How a family strove to make ends meet through severe hardship during ww1. Thomas makes light of it all with wit, charm and such delightful drawings of news items or his family.
Shaun sewell has made a great discovery and shared it with the nation. We must thank you for that and just hope Harper collins will see fit to produce book 2 from 1919 t0 1933. I only hope someone will find the pre war diaries that might have started as early as 1905 whilst thomas was courting Agnes.
This is a real gem, set in Glasgow it gives us all another angle on the great war, A great social history, and whether you are from the North, the south, England, scotland, Ireland or Wales it will appeal to all.
A Delight September 20, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book is a delight, a gem. The original illustrations take the diaries beyond the mundane, and Thomas Livingstone's gentle humour enlivens the often dreary weather and seemingly constant worries over Agnes health. Zeplins, Chimneys, the wash house, news from the front, the ironing, the cost of coal..... all of life is here. You will love it!
Glasgow's WWI Kiss September 19, 2008
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
Well, what a find, I am normally an avid veiwer of the Antiques Roadshow but must have missed the autumn 2007 episode at alnwick castle which featured the original MSS of these diaries, these are, I think unique, part facsimilie MSS part typeset, the diaries are illustrated throughout by Thomas Cairns Livingstone, a well to do Glasweigian shipping clerk, the diaries span the best part of 30 years, but here we have the best bits, the Great War years, plus a few entries for 1933, depression era (how spookily apt for today) I am a collector of WWI Diaries, I like seeing the great war from all angles, but I have never come across one like these, and i don't think there will be another set like these published, I can rave on about how superb they are, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, I am sure you will agree, it will be the best money you've ever spent, open the pages of Thomas Cairns livingstone's diaries and let him talk to you himself and be transported back to Post Edwardian Glasgow
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