Delderfield's To Serve Them All My Days is a book that I have read frequently over the years. I found it after I watched the PBS Series. It is a very interesting period in British history - the end of "the war to end all wars" and the start of World War II. It is a time of social change, economic downturn and political upheaval. Delderfield uses the vantage point of a boy's school in Dorset to look at these issues and events. It is an extremely successful tactic. But what makes this book even more memorable are the people, from the stationmaster on the first page to the last boy on the last page, these charecters all have a very human aspect that connects to you immediately. Even the not so admirable or more difficult to like charecters make an impression.

This book is one that should be in everyone's library. It is a must have for teachers - maybe not to use as a teaching guide, but to show that our problems of today, stimulating learning, school politics, funding, are not new. Nor are the problems with parents.

This is a fine book and I recommend it highly. It is just the book for a cold rainy day and a goes well with a hot cup of tea and a scone.

When I became a teacher, my uncle gave me his copy of this book. He said it was a wonderful novel and I would take pleasure in it. He was so right! Delderfield makes PJ, Bamfylde and the whole crew come to life in my imagination. I have been even luckier to have gained access to the wonderful Masterpiece Theatre rendition of it as well. If anyone lives near either the LA or NY site of the Museum of TV and Radio, you can see the miniseries, too! It is 13 hours long but well worth it.

To Serve Them All My Days is probably the greatest book ever written about post World War One life in England. Like other readers I regularly go back and revist the likes of PJ, Algy and the boys of Bamfylde. I am lucky to be able to regularly visit the Devon countryside where the novel was set. RFD loved his Devon and the people that live in it. Having read To Serve Them All My Days and other RFD classics like Diana, I now see Devon through RFD's eyes. If you haven't read any other RFD books I stongly urge you to try, I promise you wont be dissapointed. He is my oldest and dearest friend whose stories I return to whenever I need a lift.

Whenever I smell lilacs, I think of "Mr. Sermon." I have read this book every springtime for the past 20 years. I was 19 when I first tripped across it and liked it so much that three years later I pretended I had lost it, paid the Lake Charles, La., library its purchase price and kept the book. This worn copy is by my bedside, along with the Bible, "Dracula," "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Sense and Sensibility." Mr. Sermon's journey from a frustrated 50-year-old British schoolmaster to a fully alive 51-year-old master of his destiny has comforted, entertained and inspired me for two decades. The book falls open to my favorite sections. I have been known, on a bad day, to rush upstairs to pick it up and be soothed by certain familiar passages. Definitely not PC, R.F. Delderfield's book somehow doesn't offend even a feminist like myself. And now as I approach my own midlife crisis, I plan to use it as a sort of "Pilgrim's Progress."

This book has apparently stood the test of time. While I read it, I had no idea that it had been written 30 years ago. The historic details are magnificent, as is Delderfield's sense of English geography. The story is rather simple and predictable however. And the characters are too perfect. No character is this book is ever in danger of knowing failure, and to me, that detracts from their depth.

This book is a must read for any Anglophile. The story traces the development of a haulage firm that serves all of Enland and Wales and part of Scotland. While that is the major focus, the family life of the founder of "Swan on Wheels" is very much a part of it. In fact, all the characters involved are well presented with divergent and believable personalities.

I am 15 and I loved God is an Englishman. Historical fiction is my favorite genre and the hours I spent on the 816 pages flew by. I found myself trying to finish my homework as early as possible so that I could get to the book before bed. It was also wonderful because it gave me so much to relate to in my Modern European History Class, where we are studying the same time period. I understand the events that we are learning about much more clearly because of Adam and Henrietta Swann. Everyone should read this book, I can't wait to read the other two!

If you enjoyed 'God is an Englishman' by the same author, you will want to continue reading about the saga of Adam Swann and especially his family in this sequel. Both novels are what one might label 'industrial fiction,' or books that treat England's economic transformation during the 19th century and its social consequences, along the lines of a Dickens novel. Although I was attracted to read both novels for this reason, even if one isn't interested in the economic and social aspects, the story itself, based on the interpersonal relationships of a varied list of middle and lower class characters and especially the entrepreneurial Adam Swann, is intriguing enough to keep reading to the end. And 'Theirs was the Kingdom' was the stronger of the two novels in this sense, especially in developing how Adam's children reached adulthood, the career paths they followed, and how they came to meet their spouses. If you want to learn the basic story line, see the reviews for 'God is an Englishman.'

This book started out very slow and was a continual disappointment throughout. The character development is shallow and devoid of insight into the Napoleonic campaigns it addresses. The book provides only superficial glimpses into the life of these men and their comrades. Please exhaust your reading of Cornwell, O'Brien, Pope, Shaara, Mallinson (often overlooked), Forrester and others before you subject yourself to this quagmire of a read. It is unfortunate that we cannot get a better effort from the perspective of the French while there are so many that address this era from the side of the British.

Despite what others have said about this book I have always found it worthwhile. I recently re-read it after many years and still found it to be a sweeping saga of the Napoleanic wars. Perhaps readers are too taken with the more sleek, action packed yarns of today to allow themselves to get into Delderfield's world of the Napoleanic wars. Yes the book starts off a bit slow, and yes its not as action packed as some other historical fiction on the same period. But Delderfield's strength lies in his story-telling, and this book gradually enfolds you into the epic of what was the campaigns of Napolean. After a while you find yourself swept up into the episodic writing of this story which takes its seven Voltiguers on a tour-de-force of Napoelean's battles. The author has a deep love for the period which is reflected in his style of writing. Delderfield is a writer of the old school. His story and characters slowly grow on you if you allow time for it to do so. While I agree with one reader that it would have been nice if some description of the kind of skirmish tactics the French Voltigeurs employed on the battlefield were provided, I didn't find that it detracts from the story that much. This book was written many years ago before the plethora of military historical fiction was available. I'am sure this book served as inspiration for many of the Sharpe novels et al that we see today. C.H. Forester and R.F Delderfield were the fathers of Napoleanic military historical fiction. These works stand up well over time, and since there are few books in English on the French perspective out there this makes "Seven Men" even more important. Give this book time and allow it to enfold you into its sweeping, epic events that were the horror and grandeur of the
wars of Napolean.

I bought/read this book some years ago, and kept it when moving house, so that means one day I will probably reread it...
I remember distinctly the moving history and the well documented background, right it isn't Sharpe, but if Cornwell had made the mistake (a la John Jake's wich at least gives you trilogys...) of passing the whole of the Peninsular War in a single book (thanks God he did'nt, but the whole India episodes could have been from my point of view resumed in a single one!) it woudn't have been so diferent.
I agree it's probably not the best of best but definitly not worth a single star ...
If a Napoleonic buff you probably will enjoy.