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his remarkable collection of poetry by two friends whose work is in some way similar, but also refreshingly different, focuses on ten primary themes that engagingly highlight and make eternally memorable, experiences that are common to many people, but rarely as well written as this. The phrase, ‘True wit is Nature to advantage dress’d / What oft was thought but ne’er so well express’d’, applies very poignantly to this collection.
René and Chris served in the Intelligence Corps and met in a now redundant army camp in 1965. Their friendship has endured for more than fifty-six years, sustained even over the thirty-five years when Chris lived in Australia and René travelled the world. They collaborated on this book to select poems that depict their lives. The poems stir the emotions of, for example, adventure, love, family and nation. They can provoke, they often amuse. René and Chris hope you enjoy them.
Born in Switzerland, René now lives in Sussex. He joined the Intelligence Corps as a Boy Soldier at the age of sixteen and left in 1966. The next twenty years he led and organised specialist adventure travel expeditions around the world. He spent seventeen years with the Royal Horticultural Society as managing director of its London facilities. His book, ‘Sweet Peas, Suffragettes and Showmen: Events that Changed the World in the RHS Halls’ was published by Phillimore in 2011. He took part in the 2003 Brighton Festival Fringe with a recital, ‘The Poetry of War and Conflict’.
Chris spent much of his working life in corporate organisational development, now in retirement giving volunteer support for a military museum. Published work includes An Intelligence Corps Miscellany (2020). He lives in Bedfordshire.