JOHN Powell's recent review of my book The Nightmare Trail, about the effects of the war on F W Harvey has inevitably exposed the divisions among those who are interested in this remarkable Gloucestershire man.

On the one hand, in Mr Powell's camp are those who would, as he does, describe Harvey as a 'great man' and 'our hero', on the other those like myself who respect Harvey enormously for his humanity, his use of poetry to explore his struggles with life, his robust defence of his friends the Foresters, his hatred of materialism and exploitation and his energetic contributions to community music-making.

There are many scholars who dismiss his poetry as not worth reading and many historians who are sceptical of his accounts of his wartime experiences – but most people locally have heard of him and while they may not know his poetry well or know much about his life they rightly feel he was an important figure in the cultural history of the Forest of Dean.

I was happy that Mr Powell found my book 'nicely written'. But in case anyone should think it little more than a calculated piece of sensationalist re-writing of history (as is suggested by Mr Powell's reference to my long-past journalism career), I would like to reassure those who are genuinely interested in Will Harvey's contribution to Forest life that my book is the result of many hours of original research – with much new material – and is based to an extent on material and reminiscences left me by my father who (like his father) was a great friend of the poet.

While I would never dream of cheapening Harvey's life or his writing for the sake of a journalistic read, I am also not interested in churning out another mythologised hagiography or the sort of hero-worship which undiscriminating members of the Harvey fan-club practise.

Mr Powell's perspective seems to come from that reverential, romanticised view, yet Harvey himself refuted the idea of being 'great' or a 'war hero'.

It's the reality under the hype that I wanted to examine in my book.

At least Mr Powell notes that I find Harvey 'a more interesting poet than history has accorded, a generous and active member of the Forest of Dean community, a great humanitarian and a fascinating and complex man' – though why such an assessment would 'not accord with everyone's point of view' or might tread on a few toes he does not say.

Mr Powell's apparent discomfort in reading my book may explain why he seems to miss many of the good things I have to say about Harvey and, indeed, to skip over the detailed and sympathetic analyses of some of his poems.

It may also explain why he seriously misleads by conflating my few words on Comrades in Captivity, Harvey's account of his time as a PoW, published some four yeas after he was taken prisoner.

I do not describe the book as 'the product of the brain recreating events to serve a particular end', but as a book that relies to a great extent on the author's memory, since Harvey himself acknowledges that he kept no record or diary.

It is memory itself, I say, deferring to accepted scientific theory, that is 'the product of the brain recreating events to serve a particular end.'

Comrades in Captivity is a good read – but surely no one seriously suggests that it is all a reliable factual record?

When Mr Powell re-reads my book (as I hope he does) he might find that Will Harvey emerges as certainly worthy of respect though perhaps more of a socially-minded man of the people than Mr Powell and those of a different political disposition would happily acknowledge.

He was loved by my father and was certainly popular with many locally – but we don't have to glorify him or invent noble attributes. 

So, yes, I concede The Nightmare Trail is 'a different take' from other biographies and the official view espoused and presented by Mr Powell and his fellow worshippers. In my book, where I rely mainly not on my own judgements but on other people's words and his own poetry and prose, I start with the diagnosis from Bill Tandy, Harvey's own doctor, that he was 'a war casualty'.

It seemed to me he battled with the 'nightmare trail' left by the horrors of war all his life, especially his thirty years in Yorkley, and did everything he could to expiate that awful time and exorcise his own demons by helping in so many ways his fellows, the working folk of the Forest and their families whom he was pleased to call his friends. Perhaps that makes him 'great' and a 'hero'. I suspect we will never agree.

– David Adams, Yorkley.