War diary

[Lesleyann]

I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this on the forum so apologies if it isn't. I have a diary that my grandfather kept when he was in France in WW1. He was in the Yorks And Lancs regiment and the diary has details of his time in the trenches, the soldiers' activities and marches from one place to another and his time in hospital after he was wounded. He was from West Wales and lived, at the start of the war, in South Wales and we have no idea why he was in that regiment. At the back are some names and full postal addresses of soldiers who were with him. The diary is written in pencil and partly in welsh and I'm anxious to preserve it. I wondered if the regiment has a museum that would like to have it. Whereas a part of me doesn't want to part with it, another part of me says that it will disintegrate in time and should be somewhere it can be preserved. I'd be glad of any suggestions.

[Stevie]

Hi Lesleyanne,

Your grandfather's diary is a very important document to both researchers and historians, as it is a personal first-hand account of his experiences at the front, and written almost certainly within hours of the event. You should first consider writing up a copy of it before it eventually becomes illegible, this also saves the original from further deterioration from repeated handling.  Donating to a museum is a very noble gesture, but often these diaries end up being deposited in the museum archives where very few people get to see them.

In the past I have had the privilege of writing up the diaries of Pte Jack Smallshaw of the Accrington Pals - which went on to be published in 2016, and I also researched the diaries of a Warrington man who served in the Salford Pals after I was approached by his granddaughter for help. I put together an account of her grandfathers war service - purely for her families benefit - and written up from his diaries and official documents.

Perhaps this is something that you should think of doing before parting with your grandfathers much treasured diary. That way, future generations of your family will have an account of his time at the front, and what he had to go through to earn his medals.  I wish you luck in whichever course of action you choose to take.

Cheers,

           Steve

Edited 23 August , 2023 by Stevie

[charlie962]

Ditto to everything Steve has said but I would add that by scanning the document first you can then limit handling to the scanned copy, (printed or digital) and you also preserve for the family a copy of his original hand writing. You are almost bound to make transcription errors when typing up so it is vital to have easy access back to the original in case of doubt. I suspect a museum would be equally happy to have a scanned copy instead of the original as it takes up less space.

Charlie

[AndrewSid]

Lesleyann,

I’d say you have very much come to the right place.  Whilst a museum is indeed a logical place i cannot recommend enough scanning it and getting it transcribed yourself first. Plenty of people here will help as much as you want for free, including the translation.  It’s also possible for the people here to provide some understanding of his service and likely provide a chronology of his movements and experiences if you so wish.  The detail of which will depend on the raw information available but if you want to understand his service this is the right place.  The combined  expertise on here is better than any Regimental Museum team.

With regard to his Regiment, movement between units was common.  My Lancashire Great Uncle ended up in a Welsh Regiment.  There is often a reason, such as sickness or wounding or simply the needs of the Army.

Andy

[Lesleyann]

Thank you so much for your replies.  You've given me a lot to think about. I can manage to translate it. The English is a little more difficult because my grandfather's first language was Welsh and he sometimes struggled with words in English. He married my grandmother in 1918 and she was from Shropshire so I'm not quite sure how they managed at first. She was a cook for the McDougall flour family. That's an interesting story but I won't bore you with that. One of the more touching entries in the diary is in 1918 when he says, "I am so glad I am wed". I have his army records so can trace his movements for the most part. 

My mother had the diary in her possession until she died in 2018 and I was reluctant to do anything with it while she was alive. Now I've made the first move it will be much easier.

 

Lesleyann

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

Hi @Lesleyann, our family had a similar conumdrum when my uncle died just over 10 years ago, as he had had in his possession my grandfather's manuscript diary/memoir about WW1. My sister, cousins and I decided to offer it to the IWM, who accepted it. We did approach the Regimental Museum, but they did not seem especially interested in having it, and its future is probably better assured by being in the IWM than a smaller regimental museum, as you never know whether these smaller museums will be able to survive longer term, especially as, in my grandfather's case, the regiment itself (the Lancashire Fusiliers) no longer exists in its own right. Our arrangement with the IWM is that the memoir still belongs to the family, and they are merely custodians of it. 

I photographed the whole thing - actually only after it had gone to its new home - and typed a complete transcript, all nearly 210,000 words of it, then decided to publish an edited version under the title A Lancashire Fusilier's First World War, which was quite an undertaking and would not be for everyone, but I am glad I did it as I found the whole project completely fascinating and learnt an awful lot along the way. I feel that by doing it this way the best of my GF's work is available in easily accessible form by means of the book, while the full original is also available for research purposes in the IWM's reading room if anyone requests it. Also the original is now being preserved in optimum conditions at the IWM's repository at Duxford.

Good luck with your own project.

[Howard]

On 23/08/2023 at 17:59, AndrewSid said:

Lesleyann,

I’d say you have very much come to the right place.  Whilst a museum is indeed a logical place i cannot recommend enough scanning it and getting it transcribed yourself first. Plenty of people here will help as much as you want for free, including the translation.  It’s also possible for the people here to provide some understanding of his service and likely provide a chronology of his movements and experiences if you so wish.  The detail of which will depend on the raw information available but if you want to understand his service this is the right place.  The combined  expertise on here is better than any Regimental Museum team.

With regard to his Regiment, movement between units was common.  My Lancashire Great Uncle ended up in a Welsh Regiment.  There is often a reason, such as sickness or wounding or simply the needs of the Army.

Andy

I completely agree. Museums are awash with such material, a lot of which goes uncatalogued for years, some even vanish.

Far better to transcribe and put it on the net. That way, others have a chance of seeing it.

Howard

[charlie962]

Once digitised there is also perhaps a way of pushing a museum to upload onto AMOT Army Museums Ogilvy Trust site perhaps? I'm not sure if one can go direct to AMOT itself. Just thinking out loud.

[Lesleyann]

Thank you all for your help and advice. My first step now is to scan it so that'll be done with the help of my hubby who understands these things better than I do. I won't offer it to the regiment but will explore some of the avenues you've told me about. While I'm scanning it I'll try to put some images on here.

 

Lesleyann

[charlie962]

4 hours ago, Lesleyann said:

While I'm scanning it I'll try to put some images on here.

That would be of great interest. Thank you.

[CoRifleman]

There is a cell phone app called "Camscanner" that may work GREAT for this.  It takes a picture and converts to PDF.  That means you can simply use your phone and won't be forced to lay the diary flat, if you're worried about that at all.  Preserve the digital copy in as many places as possible, lest you have one copy and it gets lost/damaged/corrupted.  Thank you so much for sharing.

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

On 28/08/2023 at 03:36, CoRifleman said:

There is a cell phone app called "Camscanner" that may work GREAT for this.  It takes a picture and converts to PDF.  That means you can simply use your phone and won't be forced to lay the diary flat, if you're worried about that at all.  Preserve the digital copy in as many places as possible, lest you have one copy and it gets lost/damaged/corrupted. 

This sounds as if it would be brilliant for the job. My photographs of my grandfather's diary are for the most part only of good enough quality for private use, as I didn't want to stress the spine of the books too badly by flattening them. Also, the recommendation to save on more than one device is a good one.

As for making the diary available on the internet, I don't think there is a right or wrong answer for this. There's a lot of material available on the internet these days without payment being required at the point of access, and, just by way of example, I'm sure all the users of this forum and those who have accessed War Diaries at the NA since covid are grateful for that. We all know, though, that nothing is ever really free. Presumably our taxes ought to cover the NA, while this forum depends on donations as well as volunteers to keep it going, and other sites rely on advertising revenue.

There are other considerations as well. For example, I never wanted to make money out of my grandfather's book, but I have been able to donate just over £2,000 to Combat Stress and other charities so far, which I could not have done if I'd made the diary freely available on the internet. I'm also not sure how many people would actually have accessed it if I had done so. Just by way of example, @davidbohl has recently provided a link on this site to some letters written by a Private Joseph Quinn that he has taken the trouble to transcribe in their entirety https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/305525-lcpl-joseph-quinn-klr-his-letters-home-before-being-kia-on-3071916-at-guillemont , but, even on a site dedicated to WW1 enthusiasts, up to press only two people have commented on reading them.

At least I know that, as a book, my GF's memoir is being read, even if not by as many people as I would wish (of course!), but I believe more than would have found it if I had simply put it up on the internet. Also, it must be a good thing that some of the purchasers have probably not read much, if anything, about WW1 before, and include at least one school.

As I say, there is no right answer - just a lot to think about!