BEHOLD THE DARK GRAY MAN: Triumphs and Trauma: The Controversial Life of Sholto Douglas.

• Date: 01 September 2023
• Author: Couchman, Bryan

Author: Katharine Campbell Published by: Biteback Publishing Ltd, London, 2021, 488pp, 20 [pounds sterling].

The American writer William Faulkner once observed that 'The past is never dead. It's not even past.' This is one of the haunting themes of a new biography of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Douglas of Kirtleside, evocatively written by his daughter, Dr Katharine Campbell. Drawing on her experience as a neuroscientist, Campbell re-examines the life of this unconventional and colourful 20th century airman. She offers fresh insights informed by her early personal childhood recollections, extensive medical knowledge and a robust analytical approach. These include new perspectives on the impact of what would probably now be diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder on Douglas's performance as a senior RAF commander. As Campbell notes,

I started looking back into his life through the prism of PTSD, and a new and different story emerged. I realised I was looking at a lifetime of trauma, from his early childhood, through not one but two world wars, and on into the devastation of post-war Germany. The author's personal insights and reflections, supported by meticulous research, are one of the book's greatest strengths. Campbell opens with a childhood memory of her elderly father sleepwalking, dressed in just a pyjama top and pushing a tea trolley, haunted by 'a meeting about the Sentences'. Trapped in his nightmares, Douglas repeatedly replayed the final judgments he had to review on the Nuremberg war criminals. Following early childhood deprivation, Campbell describes his trajectory from army...