They buried him amongst kings, the unknown warrior of the Great War, selected from those vast battlefields of the Western Front.

He was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, and now in a new book his story is retold by author and broadcaster John Nicol who joins us on a special

old Trump line welcome to a special edition of the podcasts and I'm really pleased this week

to be joined by author, broadcaster and RAF veteran John Nicol.

John was born in North Shields.

He was part of a tornado crew during Operation Granby in the first Gulf War in 1991

when his aircraft was shot down and him and his pilot, John Peters, became prisoners of war.

And the images of them, I think, became some of the most iconic images of recent conflict in many, many ways.

Post-the-R-AF, John became an author and broadcaster.

And these two recent books on The Spitfire and the Lancaster are two great and accessible accounts of those mighty aircraft

and their role in the Second World War. But now John has turned his hand to the Great War and thus

the interview for this podcast with a book on one of the most affecting subjects of that conflict,

which is the story of the unknown warrior. So thanks for

joining us, John. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thanks, Paul. I mean,

honestly, thank you for having me on. As you know, and all of your listeners will know,

my kind of area of interest, stroke, bracket's expertise was always the second world war. So this one

is a new one for me. So I shall wait. I wait with trepidation what you ask me and what you say about

the new book. Well, it's a fascinating subject. And I kind of looked at the proofs that you sent me

and I loved how you started this at Highwood,

that rottenest place on the Somme battlefields,

where you begin with this central kind of character, really,

which is Padre David Ralton.

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