I came across a very interesting post on the website of the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. Their Heritage Education Officer Ruth Butler writes about working on a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, in 2016. She found what she describes as “a treasure-trove of sketchbooks, diaries, letters and photographs that belonged to Hetman Jack Parham.”

“It turned out there weren’t just one or two sketchbooks, there was a whole box-full that charted Jack’s career from a young subaltern in the Royal Artillery at the outbreak of the Great War to his most senior command postings as a Major General at the end of the Second World War.

The sketches are beautiful. They are also packed full of information, a detailed record of the fighting landscape of two world wars and an insight into an artillery officer’s mind.”

Here’s a couple of images:

What a treasure indeed! See more at Jack Parham – solider, artist, inventor. And you can find other blog posts about World War I and World War II notebooks in my archives.