Gallantry & Devotion: Man’s Best Friend, and the Animals' VC

In collaboration with the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals - and with privileged access to the charity's extensive archives - journalist and author David Long is currently working on an authorised history of the Animals' Victoria Cross, the PDSA Dickin Medal.

The first such book to be written since the late 1940s, it brings together three enduringly popular subjects – animals, heroism and combat - describing in detail the astonishing, raw and moving stories of solders, sailors, airmen and civilians whose lives have been saved by animals serving alongside them. Medals have been struck just 63 times in nearly 70 years, being awarded for actions on the battlefield, behind enemy lines with the SOE and SAS, on the home front, and more recently at New York's 'Ground Zero' and in Helmand Province. Afghanistan.

The stories of the recipients' conspicuous courage and devotion are highly engaging and the book, whilst authoritative, is being written for the general reader, and in particular the PDSA's several million regular supporters. With full promotion and marketing support from the charity, and enormous scope for excerpting individual stories as a significant anniversary of the Dickin Medal approaches the book is both timely and long overdue.

Book Author

Well received by reviewers and readers alike, David Long's books on London include Spectacular Vernacular: London's 100 Most Extraordinary Buildings, a sequel Tunnels, Towers & Temples: London's 100 Strangest Places, and the popular Little Book of London. The trio reflects the author's longstanding interest in the quirkier, lesser known aspects of the city, its long history, streetscape and architecture, and since 2006 he has published a number of other books on related subjects together with two more volumes in the Little Book series. A writer and journalist since graduating in the 198...
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