World War I Diary. Book 1. 1 January to 29 March 1918

This first world war diary, of which this first part, covering the first three months of 1918, appears to be all that has survived, was written by a lieutenant in the Surrey Yeomanry recuperating in Wareham, Dorset, and several locations in Wales.

Little is concerned with military matters: some references to his occasional duty as the reserve regiment’s “supernumery orderly officer” and superficial coverage of a two-week signalling course.

The diary includes a period of compassionate leave in London, helping to sort out the affairs of his brother, also a lieutenant, who was killed in the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917 and who had been married for barely more than a fortnight

Much of the diary is taken up with fiancee and family, promotions, pay (fourteen shillings a day after his promotion to first lieutenant was gazetted on 29 January), and the state of his account with Cox’s Bank. It is therefore likely to be of little interest outside the Pickering family or to those with connections to the Surrey Yeomanry or with a possible interest in the routine of army life in wartime Britain (the diary records a few details of an air-raid in Finchley, London, in which 47 people were killed and 169 wounded).

Only a little more than half the book comprises actual diary, as the first 98 pages are filled with a “foreword”, started on 14 December 1917 and discussing diary-writing in general, quoting from the famous, including Pepys and Evelyn, and explaining no doubt to a family member why this 23-year-old officer had decided to write a diary.

Although the covers are well worn, and the front cover is loose, the pages themselves are in good condition - untorn, clean and undiscoloured - and the writing is very legible. The diary is written in ink a 240-pp ruled quarto notebook – thread-sewn, as was normal nearly a hundred years ago, in ten 24-pp sections.