User:Davyrobertson/The Wee Fellas

The Wee Fellas is a 2014 debut novel by Richard Maitland. It tells the story of a Bantam soldier who having been rejected from the regular Army for being below minimum height of 5 ft 3in (160 cm) in WW1 voluntarily swaps the snooker halls of Glasgow for the killing fields of France and Belgium.

Plot summary
Billy Stirling, nicked-named "Stick", is born a small baby. He comes from a middle-class family who fall on hard times when his day-dreaming father leaves for new pastures. He grows up in Glasgow with his mother and ends up on the wrong end of a birch for a minor burglary with two other "losers". His experience teaches him to toughen up and use his intelligence as he rises above his diminutive stature to become a ruthless operator in the unforgiving back-street snooker halls of the city.

A confrontation leaves Billy with a blood feud and vulnerable to more than a birching. In a Glasgow cafe, he meets a bearded older stranger who is acquainted with his mother. The stranger advises him to join an army Bantam Battalion to escape his troubles. Billy has little choice and chooses an "honorable" way out by volunteering to serve in the killing fields of Northern France.

Conception
2014 is the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WW1. The author's inspiration came from his own keen interest and knowledge of military history and the expectation there would be a large volume of historical works produced around that time. The Bantam regiments are largely an untold story of men who were smaller than the Army regulation height and rejected to fight in WW1.

The author decided to use a fictional narrative to explore details of the Bantam soldiers which are often missed in historical documents that refer to the Bantam regiments. Many being of diminutive size were involved in brawls - especially in bars usually initiated by taunts of their height and stature.

The author weaves fiction and fact to good effect. He uses original songs from the Bantam soldiers to paint a historically accurate life of being a small soldier in the trenches.

The Wee Fellas is a Scottish dialect phrase meaning the small men. The Bantam regiments originated in Cheshire. Scottish dialect is used throughout the text and gives additional reality to the language of Glasgow

Publication
The novel is published in hardback and Kindle format on Amazon.

Author
The book is written by Ken Houston under the pseudonym Richard Maitland. He is a former journalist of the Scotsman newspaper. His recognition awards include ISVA regional property journalist of the year 1995 and 1996; BT Scotland business journalist of the year, 1998; Bradford and Bingley regional personal finance journalist of the year 2000.

Reception
The Scottish press carried articles in 2014.