crosscuts_war_cvrCrosscut's War - The life and times of a Gallipoli soldier

Thomas Henry "Crosscut" Wilson

by Chris Holyday

ISBN 978-0-85905-652-6, (New, 2016), A4, 79 pages, illustrated, indexed, 240 grams

$30.00* + POST


Thomas Henry (Crosscut) Wilson was a mate of Henry Lawson. He came West in the 1890s in quest of gold but instead struck a very rich vein of literary success along the inky way.

This book brings together some of the most lively and vivid word pictures that Wilson wrote over a very prolific period that ultimately shaped the very character of our whole nation, including his participation in the Gallipoli campaign with the 16th Battalion. And it tells the back-story of Crosscut, the man, mainly gleaned from his own writing. The reader should beware, however, for Wilson was a larrikin at heart, could mix fact with fiction and had a definite weakness for beer combined with a wanderlust that would see him drift all over Western Australia. He was also a very fine writer, amongst the top shelf of those colourful characters that had drifted West chasing the weight, and stayed to help build the State we know today.

This book includes some of his finest freelance reporting during the Gallipoli campaign.