Book Review : A Moment of War by Laurie Lee

The final book in the autobiographical trilogy after Cider With Rosie and As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning.

Laurie Lee went back to Spain in December 1937 and crossed over The Pyrenees, only to be arrested as a spy and thrown into prison. He had some stamps in his passport from Morocco dating from a time when Franco was preparing to invade mainland Spain from that country. No one appears to trust him and it’s only the word of his Pyrenean guide that allows him to be accepted.

Laurie Lee is moved around various parts of eastern Spain and stops in many places without seeing the front line. The book shows the conditions of not only the Republican forces but those of the people of the region, it’s a social and economic history of the time.

Eventually, Laurie Lee takes part in the retreat from Teruel, the only time he’s been given a real gun to defend himself. The Republican hierarchy decides that he must leave Spain and he’s taken back to Barcelona where he’s arrested again and forgotten about in prison for three weeks. He’s rescued by Bill Rust, the editor of the Daily Worker, and leaves Spain on a train.