Sam Fender’s favourite book
Outside of music, when Sam Fender isn’t on the road or in the studio, he’s an avid amateur second world war historian and believes there are plentiful life lessons we can all learn from the suffering previous generations selflessly put themselves through.
His grandad served during the war, which sparked his fascination with the war. Speaking to The Guardian, Fender recommended the book Beyond Band Of Brothers, which is the memoir of Dick Winters, and was released in 2006. Winters, who passed away in 2011, served as an officer for the United States Army who was promoted to major and placed in command of the 2nd Battalion.
Winters’ life story inspired the HBO series Band Of Brothers, and Damian Lewis portrayed him. In 2018, on the seventh anniversary of the veteran’s death, Lewis took to Twitter to write: “RIP MAJOR DICK WINTERS who died on this day 2011. An honour to have portrayed you. A man of few words and heroic actions. An inspiration to us all.”
Band Of Brothers was a revolutionary series which did justice to Winters’ heroic story and brought it to a new generation. It was also the start of blockbuster television and had a budget of $125 million, which was the precursor for later HBO productions such as Game Of Thrones.
Although the series spanned ten episodes, understandably, there were various details that they had to leave out, and it was impossible to explore every aspect of his story. Therefore, he decided to write a book, and Fender believes it should be on everybody’s reading list.
“I’m fascinated with the second world war. My grandad used to jump out of planes behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia and Africa and he was just a little geordie lad from Shields,” the Seventeen Going Under creator explained.
He added: “Which leads me to this book. Dick Winters was an NCO at the start of the war but then ended up becoming the company leader of Easy Company, a group of American paratroopers. The book is his memoir of the war. The one thing that runs through it and the TV series Band of Brothers is the idea that you end up fighting for the person next to you. It’s all about the strength of the unit.”
Fender has already made one documentary for BBC Four about his hometown hero, Alan Hull. After reading about his enthusiasm for the second world war, why shouldn’t it be the next subject he chooses to tackle? I’d certainly watch it.
