Don't miss fascinating talk about famous soldier, adventurer and conman

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The new season of the West Lothian History and Amenity Society begins this month with a talk about someone you’ve probably never heard of - Francis Metcalfe, soldier, adventurer - and conman.The Nearly Man is the true story of an almost incredible life, beginning in Banchory in 1898, and ending on the west coast of Canada in the 1970s.The story ranges from the great estates of Scotland to the trenches of the Somme and the war against the Bolsheviks in North Russia in the early 1920s.

His associations with the soon-to-be famous and his brushes with death were followed wasted years in post-war London, and a narrow escape from being murdered by Sinn Fein in Ireland.After a spell in prison for fraud, Metcalfe became a fugitive from Scottish law as he engineered a daring escape to France.

But all this was not the half of it: his adventures included further imprisonment, escape to Canada, encounters with famous writers and soldiers of his time, riots, hardships, and the infamous ‘Ottawa Trek’.Francis Metcalfe nearly became one of Britain’s notable war heroes, poets, writers, adventurers, businessmen and criminals; but his adventures had become lost in time, until his story was painstakingly unearthed for the book, The Nearly Man.The speaker is Mark Bridgeman, a previous book of whose became a Waterstones’ Book of the Year.

His current book, on Metcalfe, has been nominated for the prestigious James Tait Black Biography Award.He promises an entertaining talk, and even a special event during his talk.