View Full Version : John Nichol books
Hi
I have read the excellent book "Spitfire" by the above and it is superb and I have his book "Lancaster" hoping it is as good,. What I want to know is Does anyone know if he intends to do a book about the "Hurricane" ???
Arfur Dent
8th Jun 2020, 16:54
He's on twitter I think. Ask him.
Wrathmonk
8th Jun 2020, 17:10
He's on PPRuNe as well.....but without the J in his surname!
SimonK
8th Jun 2020, 17:55
I asked him this a few days ago.....he said ‘Tornado’!
just another jocky
8th Jun 2020, 18:03
I recommended Spitfire on the good reads thread a while ago, it is an excellent book.
Looks like I shall also be buying Lancaster and Tornado too. Thanks.
If you look at the end of his Lancaster book, it tells you his next project is "Tornado".
Jackonicko
8th Jun 2020, 19:35
You'd have thought that Mosquito, Hurricane or Vulcan would be more commercial.
But then again, AFAIK, he has not flown the Mossie, Hurricane or Vulcan!
ExAscoteer2
9th Jun 2020, 19:30
He's not 'flown' anything, being self-loading freight!
DODGYOLDFART
9th Jun 2020, 22:03
What ever he chooses as his next subject I will be in line for copy. Very impressed with his "Spitfire" exposition, must have taken a huge amount of research and attention to detail.
Islandlad
10th Jun 2020, 05:14
He's not 'flown' anything, being self-loading freight!
Ouch :) Doesn't he use the phrase "flown in"?
Tankertrashnav
10th Jun 2020, 12:17
Sometimes referred to as "former RAF pilot" in the press, etc. Not his fault, the average journo knows next to nothing about aircraft and as far as they are concerned anyone strapping himself (or herself) into a fast jet must be a pilot
Ex Ascoteer: Harsh, but fair. Someone took the hook!
just another jocky
10th Jun 2020, 16:51
What ever he chooses as his next subject I will be in line for copy. Very impressed with his "Spitfire" exposition, must have taken a huge amount of research and attention to detail.
My copy of Lancaster has just arrived and I'm looking forward immensely to reading it. If it is as good as Spitfire, then it will indeed be a great read.
The John Nichol I recall was an operational WSO on both F3 and IDS Tornado, being shot down, captured and interrogated during GW1. Hardly what one would call "Self loading freight".
cliver029
11th Jun 2020, 09:41
57MM
You are ex forces? if so you should have been able to spot the humour in the statement
I must be getting old, as it didn't seem like the crewroom banter I used to know.
Chris Kebab
11th Jun 2020, 10:26
57MM
You are ex forces? if so you should have been able to spot the humour in the statement
He is. And so am I and I didn't think it amusing "banter" either. More SLF? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mynarski
Video Mixdown
11th Jun 2020, 11:18
I must be getting old, as it didn't seem like the crewroom banter I used to know.
Agreed. I think it says much more about the type of person he is than the subject of his mean-spirited slurs.
OJ 72
11th Jun 2020, 11:49
Sadly, I think the current trend of being 'offended by everything' has reached the denizens of PPrune. As a member of the aforementioned 'self-loading freight' branch myself I genuinely had a bit of a chuckle when I read that comment. I can remember one of the 'Two Winged Master Race' saying that he'd rather have the extra 200lbs of fuel than fly with a Nav. But as one of my 'Single Wing' brethren pointed out to him '200lbs of fuel can't carry your bags off the aircraft, nor can it 'accompany' the ugly less attractive one of the pair of ladies that you meet in the hotel bar'!!
However, to get back to the Lancaster book being discussed (which I am currently reading)...I have to admit that as an aficionado of all things Bomber Command (and those of you who know me will know of my 'previous') I am disappointed in it. Unfortunately, it doesn't stand scrutiny with John's previous Bomber Command/Aviation books that I have read, such as 'The Last Escape', 'Tail End Charlies' and 'The Red Line'. 'Lancaster' appears to be a mish-mash of crew and raid-related anecdotes taken from his (and others') earlier books on Bomber Command. Worthy, incredible and moving though these stories are they don't actually address the books sub-title 'The Forging of a Very British Legend'. And, perhaps more disappointing, the accuracy of the research is sometimes lacking, as there are mistakes in dates, spellings of names, bombing techniques and details of raids etc.
John Nichol
11th Jun 2020, 11:50
Not been on this forum for a while. Many thanks for the kind comments about the books.
Many people have asked me about doing Hurricane/Mossie etc etc.- the simple, increasingly sad fact is that my books are all based around interviews with the WW2 veterans themselves - For "Spitfire" and "Lancaster" I amassed 100s of hours of personal testimony, amounting to millions of words which distilled down to a 140,000 word book.
Unfortunately, this means that "Lancaster" will be my last book on WW2 aircraft for the moment as there are not the numbers of surviving veterans available to tell their stories.
I am indeed doing "Tornado" next - telling the story of the Tornado in the First Gulf War in 1991. It has been an incredible experience talking to my old friends and colleagues who flew those ops; especially as I wasn't there for most of it!
Top West 50
11th Jun 2020, 11:52
Well said OJ72, on both points
Vendee
11th Jun 2020, 13:00
Not been on this forum for a while. Many thanks for the kind comments about the books.
Many people have asked me about doing Hurricane/Mossie etc etc.- the simple, increasingly sad fact is that my books are all based around interviews with the WW2 veterans themselves - For "Spitfire" and "Lancaster" I amassed 100s of hours of personal testimony, amounting to millions of words which distilled down to a 140,000 word book.
Unfortunately, this means that "Lancaster" will be my last book on WW2 aircraft for the moment as there are not the numbers of surviving veterans available to tell their stories.
I am indeed doing "Tornado" next - telling the story of the Tornado in the First Gulf War in 1991. It has been an incredible experience talking to my old friends and colleagues who flew those ops; especially as I wasn't there for most of it!
Glad to hear you are well John. You won't remember me by name but I was a "Sooty" on XV when you were serving on that sadly departed squadron and I still remember that morning at Muharraq when you and JP didn't come back. Don't want to embarrass you but you were always popular with the Erks, possibly because that's where you came from. I also just finished reading your "Spitfire" book last month. I admit that it took a while to get to grips with the format and to remember all the characters that were introduced but I got there in the end and really enjoyed it. I'm not sure you would ever have cut it at McDonalds :)
John Nichol
11th Jun 2020, 13:07
Glad to hear you are well John. You won't remember me by name but I was a "Sooty" on XV when you were serving on that sadly departed squadron and I still remember that morning at Muharraq when you and JP didn't come back. Don't want to embarrass you but you were always popular with the Erks, possibly because that's where you came from. I also just finished reading your "Spitfire" book last month. I admit that it took a while to get to grips with the format and to remember all the characters that were introduced but I got there in the end and really enjoyed it. I'm not sure you would ever have cut it at McDonalds :)
Cheers - that's much appreciated (I would have been fab selling burgers & fries!) - I have DM'd you about the Gulf.
Jackonicko
12th Jun 2020, 01:29
The two latest books are perhaps not entirely my cup of tea, but then I don't think I'm really the target market!
I am, however, absolutely in awe of the technique employed in both Spitfire and Lancaster, and offer my unqualified congratulations on a really professional job. Spitfire is a really skilfully written book and shows JN to be a really gifted story-teller - I'm not that far into Lanc yet, but I daresay I will enjoy it!
I wish my old Dad was still with us - he flew Yorks after the War, and logged a lot of time in the Lanc and Lincoln at the RAE after that, and had a real soft spot for the Lanc. His log books include all of the big four 4-engined bombers - Lanc, Halifax, B-17 and B-24, and he never flew a normal, standard bomber sortie in any of them. I'd be fascinated in what he would have made of the latest book.
Good luck with Tornado, JN!
John Nichol
12th Jun 2020, 09:09
The two latest books are perhaps not entirely my cup of tea, but then I don't think I'm really the target market!
I am, however, absolutely in awe of the technique employed in both Spitfire and Lancaster, and offer my unqualified congratulations on a really professional job. Spitfire is a really skilfully written book and shows JN to be a really gifted story-teller - I'm not that far into Lanc yet, but I daresay I will enjoy it!
I wish my old Dad was still with us - he flew Yorks after the War, and logged a lot of time in the Lanc and Lincoln at the RAE after that, and had a real soft spot for the Lanc. His log books include all of the big four 4-engined bombers - Lanc, Halifax, B-17 and B-24, and he never flew a normal, standard bomber sortie in any of them. I'd be fascinated in what he would have made of the latest book.
Good luck with Tornado, JN!
Thanks for the message Jack - jolly kind of you.
You make a perfectly valid point. My books aren't really aimed at people who have immersed themselves in the subject for many years. I am trying to bring the subject to a new audience.
A few 'experts' have pointed out that both Spitfire and Lancaster haven't dealt fully with either a specific subject (eg Dambusters) or covered the development and engineering of the aircraft itself. This is deliberate on my part. For instance; I wrote extensively about 617 Sqn in a previous book so decided not to deal with it again.
It is a very easy criticism to make which basically says: "you haven't written your [bestselling] book the way I would have recommended". It is a perfectly reasonable point to make, but we are seeing more of this type of attitude these days which intimates, "I disagree with your viewpoint, ergo you must be wrong".
But more importantly, there are many 1000s of previous (excellent) books which have already covered development/engineering/weaponry etc. of Lancaster/Spitfire - to do so again would simply have attracted the reverse criticism that I was writing about already well-told, well-covered material.
My books are what might be called "oral history" - they tell the story through the words of those who were there. I aim at an audience which would not normally pick up a more 'dry' book on the subject. I am led to understand that "Lancaster" might well be at number 2 in the Sunday Times bestseller list this weekend; so hopefully my aim has been a bit more accurate this time.....!
Thanks to all who have bought, and especially enjoyed the books
Best wishes to all; stay safe and well.
JN
Jackonicko
12th Jun 2020, 10:49
I'm glad you don't write what I do, there's too much competition already!
I'm very glad that you write what you do write. I was chatting with Rowland White the other day and we concluded that you are a 'gateway drug' - doing today what Partworks did in years gone by - getting the merely interested 'addicted' to aviation, and turning some of them into the kind of geeks who read my stuff.
You also offer some useful examples on how to write for a modern audience, and not for a largely disappeared sect who used to worship at the altar of Bill Gunston and Bob Dorr.
... I can remember one of the 'Two Winged Master Race' saying that he'd rather have the extra 200lbs of fuel than fly with a Nav. But as one of my 'Single Wing' brethren pointed out to him '200lbs of fuel can't carry your bags off the aircraft...
Which reminded me of a Nimrod sortie to Gibraltar where a fast jet member of the TWMR was joining the flight as pax. On leaving operations he said to one of the crew, "Sergeant, those are my bags." To which the crew member answered, "Righto, sir."
On arrival in Gib, the jet jockey enquired as to the location of his bags.
"In Ops at St. Mawgan the last time you pointed them out to me, sir." Was the reply.
esscee
13th Jun 2020, 08:56
Regarding "bags", another tale of a Gp Capt paxing to BAH courtesy of 10 sqn. Very similar, as Sir alights from crew transport mentions to the driver "Those are my bags". On arrival at BAH, Sir cannot find his luggage anywhere. By now Sir getting a tadge uptight to put it very politely, was asked "where did you put your bags after leaving the crew bus?" Embarrassed Sir replies rather sheepishly "I did not touch them but told the driver which bags were mine". No need to guess where Sir's bags were, still on said crew transport. Sir rather subdued but seething for the remainer of trip. Moral of this, Put your Own bags on Aircraft!
teeteringhead
13th Jun 2020, 20:33
As a wise man once said to me: "A fool and his bags are soon parted!"