So it would appear that an editor must be a very autocratic person and accustomed to having the last word in all matters relating, at any rate, to literature.

Allow me, therefore, to take advantage of the opportunity offered, and to occupy this page with a few final words.

I want to offer my sincere thanks to contributors and others who have so kindly given me their help and advice in the publication of this book.

To those who may feel disappointment at not seeing their efforts published, I can only fall back on the usual, but rather hard-hearted, phrase: "The Editor presents his compliments and thanks, but, owing to lack of space and other reasons quite beyond his control, he very much regrets his inability to make use of the contribution submitted".

We have been told that the Home Guard served its purpose and I trust that the same may be said of this little volume and that it may be welcomed as a souvenir of those days, which already seem to belong to the distant past, when our leisure time and energies were devoted to making ourselves capable of defending that corner of Staffordshire for which the Aldridge Battalion was called into being.

                                                                                                   THE EDITOR