A well written, interesting story about a forgotten hero of World War I. Others are also written about.

I thought book would be solely about the life of Water Tull but it isn't. Chapter 8 is entitled Other Black Soldiers and Regiments of the First World War while Chapter 9 lists is a list of the 559 officers and men of the 23rd (Service) Battalion, (2nd Football) Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) who where killed during the Great War. Other chapters seem to be dedicated to pre-war history, sadly I did not enjoy the book but that is not say others won't.

Stephen Wynn’s ‘Against All Odds’ is subtitled ‘Walter Tull – The Black Lieutenant’ and is the story of Walter Daniel John Tull, the fifth child of Daniel Tull, who was born in Barbados but settled in Folkestone, and Alice Elizabeth Palmer.

On Alice’s death and his father’s remarriage, Walter was placed, aged nine, in a Bethnal Green children’s home and orphanage. Although he served an apprenticeship as a printer, Walter’s claim to fame is first as a footballer, playing for Clapton, Spurs and Northampton Town, and then as a soldier, rising to the rank of second lieutenant before being killed in action on 25 March 1918 (in an action for which he was recommended for the Military Cross).

This is a remarkable story of achievement given the racism of the time, not least the institutionalized racism of the British Army insofar as the Manual of Military Law, 1914, stated that “aliens [including blacks must] … not … exercise any actual command or power.”

Given the above, it is not surprising that Tull is already the subject of three children’s books: Dan Lydon’s ‘Walter Tull: Footballer, Soldier, Hero’ and ‘Walter Tull’s Scrapbook’ and ‘Respect!’, both by Michaela Morgan. The fact that they are children’s books means that their absence from Wynn’s bibliography should raise no eyebrows. However, also missing is any reference to Ray Costello’s ‘Black Tommies’, or to Stephen Bourne’s ‘Black Poppies’, which has a chapter on Tull, or to Phil Vasili’s ‘Walter Daniel Tull: soldier, footballer, black’ (in Race and Class, 38/2) or to the latter’s ‘Oxford Dictionary of National Biography’ entry on Tull. Although Wynn’s bibliography mentions neither, his text does refer to Vasili’s ‘Colouring Over the White Line. The history of Black Footballers in Britain’ and to the latter’s biography of Tull - ‘Walter Tull (1888-1918), Officer, Footballer’ - but only in the context of its being referenced in the Wikipedia entry on Tull.

This may help to explain why Wynn’s book is not only rather short but contains quite a lot of material only tangentially related to Tull. Thus Chapter 8, for example, is headed ‘Other Black Soldiers and Regiments of the First World War’ and Chapter 9 lists all of 559 officers and men in the 23rd (Service) Battalion, (2nd Football) Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) killed during the Great War.

In short, this is a well-intentioned book which, notwithstanding some interesting material, such as its photographs, is ultimately rather pedestrian.