Merry Christmas from We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Over the next 12 days Al and James are reading extracts from some of their favourite books about the Second World War. Today James is reading from Straits of Messina,

Al Murray joins James Holland to discuss Sicily ‘43 in this special edition of the podcast recorded for Waterstones.

After growing up in a Scottish orphanage Matt Mackinnon-Pattison volunteered for the army at the first opportunity and found himself fighting with a Highland regiment in Italy. In this second part of his conversation with James Holland we hear of

Brigadier George Chatterton’s memoirs, read by Al Murray, tell the extraordinary story of his time as a soldier for the British Army who then went on to become the Commander of the Glider Pilot Regiment during the Second World War.