"Driven largely to leave something perhaps worth reading after a long life. Vanity also played a part. It usually does."

Arthur Woods - 2006

11-Mar-2006

Welcome to my Web site!

My name is Arthur Woods and I thought at 83, after 65 years of soldiering and work would be a good time to start writing. So in the next 2 years, I wrote 3 books; each completely different to the others. In nearly 7 years of war there is always long periods of waiting between relatively short periods of savage and frightening actions; much time for thinking, and it was always in my mind that writing, at some time in the future would be important to me. Though I never thought 60 years would elapse before visions and memories would be put into words in the first book. The other two followed quickly.

The base material was drawn from various places. The uncanny nature of the Libyan and Egyptian deserts, where the sole purpose was the destruction of men and materials; no civilian, no towns. As has been said "A war without hate" fought between two well matched foes, the British and the Germans. Then Sicily with its poverty and historic beauty; and Italy more of the same. All these were the source of rich and heady stuff on which to write a memoir of extraordinary encounters; an examination of St Paul and his life; and a layman's history of the Ulster Scotch Irish and their formidable contribution to the creation of America.

These places were strangely connected by history, politics, business and travel.

Born in 1920, A soldier in world war II from 1939 to 1946. International engineer and salesman working in heavy industry principally in Western Europe, but also in Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain of Russia and its client Communist states. Also in America, the Middle East and India: a total of over 50 years in 17 countries.