harrybucknall

Writer, publicist, host @blesma podcast & soldier in the last century - New book #ARoadForAllSeasons Constable 2026

[harrybucknall @HarryBucknall]

#ARoadforAllSeasons is a joy.

Harry Bucknall celebrates our idiosyncrasies, delights in our traditions, and throws open his heart to the beauty of the countryside and its architectural heritage. Multicultural Britain is safe in his hands.

Thank you @juliesummersUK ❤️

[harrybucknall @HarryBucknall]

It is a privilege to present @Blesma #HumanNotHeroic podcast. This interview, with #MarkSmith was poignant, not just because he was my radio op through the thick n thin of Bosnia but because he persevered; a double leg amputee, his can do attitude is an example to us all.

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

Ask most people to name the best British general of World War Two and they will say Montgomery. Ask the historians who study it closely and a lot of them will quietly tell you the real answer is a man most people have never heard of. His name was William Slim, and his soldiers just called him Uncle Bill.

Slim was not born into any of it. No fortune, no famous family, no smooth path through the elite schools that produced most British generals. He was a working class kid who had been a teacher and a clerk, and he only slipped into the army through a technicality before the First World War. He got shot up at Gallipoli, wounded again in the Middle East, and clawed his way up the ranks the hard way, on merit, one rung at a time.

By 1942 he was handed one of the worst jobs in the entire war. The Japanese had smashed the British in Burma, and Slim was put in charge of the retreat. It became the longest fighting withdrawal in British military history, close to a thousand miles back to the border of India, through jungle and mountains, hounded the whole way. Most commanders are remembered for the battles they win. Slim first had to prove himself by saving a beaten army from being wiped out, and he brought it home still fighting.

Then he did the thing that should make him a household name. He took that broken, sick, forgotten army, an incredible mix of British, Indian, African, and Gurkha soldiers, and he rebuilt it from the ground up. He got a grip on the malaria that was dropping more men than bullets. He fixed the food, the training, the supply, and above all the morale. He walked among the troops constantly, talked to them like human beings, and made them believe again. They started calling themselves the Forgotten Army, half proud and half bitter, because the war in Europe got all the headlines while they bled in the jungle.

In 1944 the Japanese threw everything into a massive invasion of India, aimed at Imphal and Kohima. Slim let them come, stretched their supply lines to breaking, and then broke them. The fighting at Kohima was so brutal it has been called the Stalingrad of the East, with men grenading each other across a district commissioner's tennis court. When it was over, the Japanese had suffered the single greatest defeat their army had ever endured on land. Tens of thousands of them never went home.

And Slim was not finished. In 1945 he pulled off a masterpiece of deception, faked out the Japanese about where he would cross the Irrawaddy river, seized the town of Meiktila and cut the enemy in half, then drove all the way to Rangoon and finished the reconquest of Burma. He had taken the most humiliating defeat in British Far Eastern history and turned it completely inside out. He literally titled his memoir Defeat into Victory, and it is still considered one of the finest books a soldier has ever written.

What his men remembered was not the strategy. It was that he never lied to them, never wasted them, and never forgot they were people. In a war full of commanders who spent lives cheaply and hungered for glory, Uncle Bill did the opposite, and they loved him for it. He ended his life as a viscount and the Governor General of Australia, but the title that mattered was the one his soldiers gave him.

Montgomery got the fame. Slim got the respect of the people who actually knew.

[harrybucknall @HarryBucknall]

@JamesT_eib @ColdstreamGds Thanks 2 track mileage & your aversion to going on operations, a grateful nation kept you in reserve for your entire short lived - but that was too long -
military career, spent on radio silence, waiting 4 spares or changing tracks on the Warminster-Tidworth border. Arduous‼️😳😝

[harrybucknall @HarryBucknall]

Forty years ago, in a land far, far away … No 3 Company, 1st Bn @ColdstreamGds #Fiji 🇫🇯

[SP Caldwell @SPJCaldwell]

The Catholic Writers' Guild has arranged for a Mass to be celebrated for the repose of the soul of Ann Widdecombe, author of four novels and a former Mistress of the Keys in the 1990s, at 6pm on Thursday July 23 at the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception in Mayfair, London

[On Parade UK 🇬🇧 @OnParadeUK]

Here’s another chance to see our film @RoyalAirForce Caribbean Aces of WWII
https://t.co/Uj5MOQT0cU

[Blesma @Blesma]

After 35+ years in the police, Peter David began a new chapter — until sepsis changed his life forever and led to the amputation of his left leg.

Encouraged by his wife, Peter applied for an FSDP scholarship and found confidence again through flying over California. ✈️💙

[harrybucknall @HarryBucknall]

Coooool! Bravo @RoyalAirForce! Happy 250 USA! God Bless America! #shouldertoshoulder

[Carl @HistoryBoomer]

This is a ridiculously over-the-top display of brash arrogant patriotism.

God, I love it! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 https://t.co/uqf4ofuDm7

[Russell @russell_m]

The United Kingdom @rafredarrows came through for the 4th of July 250th celebration in @newyorkcity #sail250.

[harrybucknall @HarryBucknall]

@Kevinturne64328 @BritishArmy That is NOT uniform.

[harrybucknall @HarryBucknall]

Stourpaine Village Hall,
6.30pm, Saturday 11 July

[harrybucknall @HarryBucknall]

Looking forward to meet Rob for the next episode of @blesma #HumanNotHeroic #podcast ....

[Blesma @Blesma]

Ten years ago, RAF parachute instructor Rob Bugden’s life changed in an instant. During a training jump, a mid-air collision sent him plummeting nearly 1,000ft.

He woke up paralysed from the neck down — a quadriplegic with no memory of the fall.

After a tracheostomy, stomach peg, pacemaker, and multiple surgeries, Rob refused to give up.

Today he’s back in the gym, enjoys the pub with mates, and has his dog Denzel as his constant companion.

Incredible resilience

[Blesma @Blesma]

Former Gurkha. Both legs lost to an IED in Afghanistan.

This week, @Hari_BudhaMagar was awarded his fifth Guinness World Record — the first double above-knee amputee in history to conquer the Seven Summits, the highest peak on every continent.

"I went through hell and back."

Proud to be among the charities he supports. 🏔️

[Blesma @Blesma]

Before he wore a uniform, Mark wore chef's whites. 💙

A Michelin-trained chef, he swapped it all to serve — until an explosion in Iraq cost him the sight in one eye.

Now a @Blesma Member, he's turned food into a force for good: a charity cookbook, every penny to good causes.

👇 What's the one dish that tastes like home?

[harrybucknall @HarryBucknall]

It is a privilege to write, but it is an honour to tell the reality & truth of life for our #limbless #veterans in @blesma’s #HumanNotHeroic #podcast … our #Duty to them is all the greater long after the band ceases to play … the debt we owe, the salute we give.

[Royal Navy @RoyalNavy]

Ever vigilant, ever on patrol...

@hms_tyne, @HMSLedbury, @hmssevern, @hms_mersey, @HMSSutherland and @HMSSomerset have all been involved in a 3-month-long operation monitoring Russian naval activity around the UK.

https://t.co/gF8qbB05e4

[Royal Naval Reserve @RNReserve]

We invite you to join us in welcoming Commodore Suzi Nielsen OBE RN who has taken over as Commander Maritime Reserves from Commodore Jo Adey ADC RN. Cdre Nielsen was once a #Reservist at @HMSFlyingFox in #Bristol before joining the Royal Navy! 👇
https://t.co/ZqyvgN9wf0 🌊⚓️🌏

[harrybucknall @HarryBucknall]

@RNReserve @HMSFlyingFox Brava! How very smart Cdre Nielsen looks too … many congratulations on this appointment and all good luck in post!

[harrybucknall @HarryBucknall]

@HistoryBowsh @ZGTours4Schools My great uncle was killed at Ypres … I’m not sure he would agree with you, Jack.