The Writers of Wales Database

HICKS, JONATHAN PHILLIP

Email: ninian27@btinternet.com
Website: www.jonathanhicks.co.uk

Dr Jonathan Hicks is an acclaimed military historian, lecturer, headteacher and published novelist. He was born in 1957 in Barry, South Wales where he lives with his wife and three sons. He is a member of the Western Front Association, the Crime Writers Association and the Victorian Military Society.

He has written for the popular magazines, Soldiers of the Queen, Stand To, The Great War and Britain at War. He also writes regular articles for local newspapers and lectures on military history throughout south Wales.

His novel entitled The Dead of Mametz (Y Lolfa, 2011) is a crime thriller set during the Welsh Division’s attack on Mametz Wood on the Somme in July 1916. He has written four books on military history.
 

Selected Publications

A Solemn Mockery: The Anglo - Zulu War of 1879 - The Myth and the Reality  (Fielding Publishing, 2006)
Strange Hells (Fielding Publishing, 2007)
Barry and the Great War (Fielding Publishing, 2007)
Barry and the Second World War (Fielding Publishing, 2008)
The Dead of Mametz (Y Lolfa, 2011)
 

A Solemn Mockery: The Anglo - Zulu War of 1879 - The Myth and the Reality (Fielding Publishing, 2006)

It is often said that the Anglo-Zulu War has been a well-ploughed field which offers little new, but drawing on a wide range of archive material, in addition to a thorough examination of published sources, Jonathan Hicks has re-appraised five events of this famous conflict and has established a series of myths which have grown up around each.
The Battle of Isandlwana, the flight from the field of Isandlwana with the Queen’s Colour by Lieutenants Melvill and Coghill, the defence of the Mission Station at Rorke’s Drift, the Battle of the Ntombe River and the death of Louis Napoleon, the Prince Imperial of France are each examined in depth to produce a fresh insight into the most enduring of Britain’s colonial wars.

 

Barry and the Second World War (Fielding Publishing, 2008)

This booklet was produced with the assistance of the people of Barry who encouraged Jonathan to tell the stories of their relatives who served during the Second World War. They entrusted to him photographs and memories from which he pieced together the stories that are contained within.

This is not a history of the Second World War; it is a collection of recollections of Barrians who fought during the Second Great War of the last century.

The Dead of Mametz (Y Lolfa) 2011

Jonathan’s first work of fiction is The Dead of Mametz, a crime thriller with an unusual setting, set as it is against the backdrop of the famous battle of Mametz Wood during the Great War in the summer of 1916. Several events also take place in Barry and Swansea.

The central character, Thomas Oscendale, is a captain in the Military Police and Jonathan sees this work as the first in a series featuring the same characters.

To purchase this title from gwales.com, please click on its front cover