Although Tatamkhulu Afrika is an established poet, now 80, this is his “d?t” novel The narrator is a South African PoW, Tom Smith. Set during the Second World War in a prison camp in Italy, then in Germany, the story is about the bittersweet memories of male friendship in wartime.The clinging but loyal nurse Douglas becomes mad with jealousy when Tom abandons him to be “best mates” with boxer Danny. With the meagre rations and brutally cold nights, the only diversions are theatrical productions (Tom plays an exceptional Lady Macbeth). The physical closeness in the all-male camps brings an unexpected, if not entirely acknowledged, intimacy between Tom and Danny. The war ends shortly after the Germans march the prisoners through the snow, planning to shoot them in the mountains.

The route has mercifully been cut.An elegantly crafted work, Bitter Eden is an astonishing story about men in close quarters forging relationships that border on trust and betrayal – and how love, in war, is an ambivalent bond.. The fiasco of the long-awaited modernisation of the west coast main line rail route plumbed new depths yesterday as Railtrack admitted it did not know how much the project would cost or by how much passenger journey times would be reduced. Passengers are already facing 15 weekends of shutdowns between Hemel Hempstead and Milton Keynes that can add up to an hour to many journey times.The cost of the scheme was originally estimated at £2.1bn. In November, the Government said the cost of upgrading the west coast main line would be more than £7bn. Railtrack sources yesterday said the final figure could be between £9bn and £13bn.Railtrack has suggested that, to keep the costs down, Virgin could reduce speeds of its “tilting” trains between Manchester and Scotland so the tilt was not needed. Some rail experts believe it is potentially dangerous for the trains to tilt in high winds in the exposed parts of northern England up to the Scottish border.

The tilting mechanisms are being introduced so they can run faster around bends.Anthony Smith, the national director of the Rail Passengers’ Council, said there should be a public inquiry into the escalating costs, delays and changing nature of the project. The tilting trains had been scheduled to run at up to 140mph.Mr Smith said that while longer line closures might help passengers by speeding the work, reducing train speeds would be a considerable blow.”The basis of Virgin’s franchise over the past five years has been people were paying more now in advance of prospective improvements … and, slowly, the improvements are being chipped away.”A Virgin spokesman said the company was in talks with the Strategic Rail Authority(SRA) and Railtrack over the project. But Virgin had bought 53 Pendolino tilting trains for the west coast line and intended to use them to their fullest extent, he said The price of the Pendolinos is reckoned to be £1bn. A Railtrack statement said that while the scheme would result in increased capacity and shorter journey times, “the exact detail of where increased line speeds will operate has still to be determined”.The statement added: “The final details regarding the overall cost, scope and outputs of the upgrade, as well as the best way of carrying out the engineering work needed to deliver this project are subject to ongoing discussions between Railtrack, the SRA, Virgin and others users on the route which continue apace. A conclusion is not expected until the end of the year.”* Most First North Western train services were cancelled yesterday as drivers staged the second of three 48-hour strikes.

The driver’s union, Aslef, says managers at First North Western, which runs main line and local services in North-west England, attached strings to a 19 per cent pay offer, introducing “new and unacceptable” proposals such as making drivers responsible for picking up litter at stations.First North Western denies having changed the terms of the three-year pay agreement and says Aslef reneged on the deal. The first 48-hour walkout was on 13 and 14 August and the next planned strike is for 10 and 11 September.. In a breakthrough that promises to settle the vast number of simmering arboreal disputes once and for all, scientists revealed yesterday that DNA profiling is to be used to identify trees causing neighbouring properties to subside. Royal & SunAlliance, which insures one in four households, pays out £80m to £100m on subsidence claims in an average year and 60 to 70 per cent of the claims relate to trees and property. That figure rises to 80 to 90 per cent in London.But the phenomenon has also pitched neighbours into intense, drawn-out legal disputes – against each other and the local council – over whose tree roots have been the cause of the damage. Microscopes may point to the culprit if an oak and a willow are the two suspects but, when two trees of the same species are in the frame, detection has been almost impossible.The solution has arrived from Newcastle University, where evolutionary geneticists said yesterday they were ready to match samples from tree roots with suspect trees.