This has proved to be a difficult task because Cecil was not from a privileged background and consequently, there were no personal diaries or family archives to consult. The author has therefore found it necessary to use an extensive source of material from both local historical and regimental accounts of the period. This has inevitably made the story rather less personal than some readers may have preferred, but we are nevertheless given an engaging tale of a country boy from the village of Poole Keynes. We learn of Cecil’s time spent working in the vast GWR works in Swindon, where the poor conditions in the factory clearly affected his health. Later returning with his family to the peace and tranquillity of the Wiltshire countryside to work as a shepherd. Unfortunately this gentle family life would be cut short and turned upside down by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Following the death of his brother in law in action; Cecil like so many, volunteers and joins the army in 1915. His military life could not be more different and we learn how he must have experienced the full horror of the fateful Gallipoli campaign and then later, the mud and total devastation of the Somme. Sadly, apart from an all too brief period of leave, Cecil would never return to his devoted wife Flo and their children in the peaceful little village of Poole Keynes. His luck would run out not on the battlefield, but ironically, following an accident far behind the lines in 1917. This is the story of a local hero, who like so many at the time was swept up in the turmoil of the war to end all wars. A good man and a brave man is the perfect title for a moving family story that needed to be told.