Unremarkable: A Good Place to Start — Special Edition - Couverture souple

In ‘UNREMARKABLE: A Good Place to Start’, bestselling author Blake Heathcote provides a completely updated and revised telling of the incredible story of John ‘Scruffy’ Weir: a Spitfire pilot in WWII, POW, key man in the infamous Great Escape, and a spy. This ‘Special Edition’ is printed in colour and on high-quality paper to optimize the quality of the photographs and illustrations throughout. Drawing on skills he was taught by an Ojibway wilderness guide, and later in SOE commando training, Weir endures a fiery plane crash and four grim years in PoW camps. His crucible of survival is capped by a 350-mile trek forced march in sub-zero weather across Germany to the Baltic Sea in the last months of the war. Blake Heathcote brings to life how Weir was trained – almost from birth – for conditions no-one could ever have anticipated. In this beautiful book, Heathcote paints a moving and affectionate portrait of an extraordinary man – and a true survivor. From the book: “If John accepted, he could never talk about any assignment he was given, nor could he speak of, or in any way acknowledge, the existence of the ‘Network’ with anyone but his Uncle Adrian. What’s more, he would be accountable and on call for the rest of his life. The work would never be particularly easy. There would always be danger and there would be no medals or decorations. The only reward was the assignments themselves. If no-one was aware of him, or what he had done, then he had succeeded. In that regard, the work was the definition of thankless. There would come a time, as there inevitably did in all intelligence work, when John would be asked to take an assignment that he did not want. But refusal was not an option. Volunteering meant there was no turning back.” John ‘Scruffy’ Weir: a most ‘unremarkable’ man. A story you will never forget.

Heathcote was born and raised in Toronto, the son and grandson of Canadian veterans. Blake's father, Lieutenant E.B. Heathcote, served in WW 2, and his grandfather, Major E.T. (Eric) Heathcote MM ED, served in both wars. In WW 2, Major Heathcote, an artist and in his 50s, was posted to London to oversee the Department of National Defense's War Art programme. In Alex Colville's words, he was the "Art Director" of the programme, and curated the work of many of the war artists including Colville, Lawren Harris (the younger), and Charles Comfort. When Eric died in 1987, he left behind a large collection of sketchbooks, photographs, and documents from both wars. Many of these were beginning to show signs of age, and so Blake carefully scanned each item at high resolution to preserve them. This in turn led to researching the stories behind each picture, letter, and journal This absorbing and compelling experience inspired him to create the Testaments of Honour project (www.Testaments.ca), a non-profit initiative whose objective was, and is, to chronicle on digital video first-hand accounts of Canadian veterans. The goal is to provide future generations with a richer, deeper understanding of Canadian history through use of first-person testaments - but also, and of equal importance, to simply share and celebrate the stories of Canadian veterans as they, themselves, told them. Random House, Doubleday, and McClelland & Stewart commissioned Blake to create books based on his work with the veterans: the best-selling Testaments of Honour was released in October 2002, and A Soldier's View in October 2005. He also produced video interviews with a cross-section of Random House authors - Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, John Grisham, Bill Bryson, and Farley Mowat among many others.