The Soldiers Own Diary
I just watched a TikTok about a soldier from WW1 called Thomas Morley. I thought it interesting that he had a notebook called 'The Soldiers Own Diary'. So as someone with a burgeoning interest in notebooks, I thought I’d look into it.#
It is a small brown cloth book with a bugler stamped in silver on the cover, and Charles Letts & Co. of London sold it to the public. The army did not issue it. In 1918 a cloth copy with a pencil cost one shilling, and a soldier could buy one at a YMCA institute in camp or from a stationer at home.#
A gunner from the 19th Company, Royal Garrison Artillery, compiled the 1918 edition. It carried useful information for a man at the front and maps of the European war areas on the endpapers, and earlier editions also printed bugle calls and knots.#
War Time Canada has some great PDF scans of soldiers notebooks.#
Plenty of soldiers just used whatever notebook they could get their hands on. One used a Gordon’s Gin one (PDF). There’s a sad contrast, seeing colourful adverts for gin drinks and recipes in the front pages and entries of war in the other pages.#
A William Simpson didn’t write much in his notebook, choosing instead to place leaves and butterfly’s in the pages:#
Soldiers from across the British Empire carried notebooks, and charities such as the Australian Comforts Fund gave a version away. I’m sure many owners wrote only a few lines or left the pages empty, too preoccupied with simply surviving.1 And I’d imagine in a cold, wet trench and being endlessly shelled it’s very difficult to find the energy and motivation to write in your notebook. Not to mention how depressing a lot of your entries would be. I’m not in a war, and I find that far too many of my entries are negative in nature (but maybe that’s just my personality).#
Thomas Morley wrote in his though. On Friday 26 April 1918 he put down in pencil, "Over the top for the first time, 6 am."#
According to the video, his battalion made a major attack that day and a shell wounded his best friend. His friend died the next day, aged 19.#
The place names beside the entry are faint, but they appear to read Villers-Bretonneux, and the second battle for that village ran from 24 to 27 April 1918, which fits the date.#
Morley survived the war. He became a railway worker, married a Hilda Frankland in 1925, and had three children. He died on 11 September 1977, more than 59 years after that morning when he first went over the top.#