PHOTO ARTICLE: Ring of Fire, 'Lost' Images

When it came to selecting the images for the book, we had forty to choose. Nicolai and I very quickly decided that if we started spending those on generals and politicians, we wouldn’t be fulfilling our remit of a ‘people’s' history of the war. But even so, when you consider that the Ring of Fire spans the entire globe for a two month period in which a lot of stuff happened, dozens of images we really liked still ended up on the cutting room floor. Which is sad. So today, I’m going to share some of those that we liked, that nearly made it into the finished book, but not quite…

This one was so, so close, as we focus at the beginning of the book on the outbreak of the war for the Royal Navy and how it challenges our preconceptions that the war started immediately on 4th August for all involved. By that time, they had been seriously preparing for several days, and we talk about what that entailed. This image shows the Grand Fleet making for the North Sea, and ultimately, it didn’t make the cut because we had other naval images that were of a higher priority that we had to save instead.