Review

The End of Empire

The Cyprus Emergency : A Soldier’s Story

Martin Bell

By Margaret Sheard…..

Having lived in North Cyprus for 12 years and in the last few years having contact and written on cyprusscene.com about some of the ex-servicemen of the Suffolk Regiment who served in Cyprus in 1958/59, I was very keen to read the book written by Martin Bell, who was himself a national serviceman in Cyprus.

I found Martin’s account of his time in Cyprus very interesting and could visualise the way in which the young men doing their national service settled in (or not) to the role of a soldier in a country maybe they had never previously heard of.

The book is a soldier’s account of the Cyprus emergency and gives an insight to the ultimate partition of the island which still exists today, 41 years later.

I was very pleased to note that Martin had referred to Fingers the Goat which is a subject I had previously written about on cyprusscene and found to be a very heart-warming story of a baby goat found in the Five Finger Mountain range (hence the name Fingers) and was adopted by C Company of the Suffolk Regiment and became its mascot.

For those who are interested in military history, especially that of Cyprus, this is a really good read and you can discover many more books by clicking here