Diary found in skip unlocks soldier's story

A diary found in a skip has uncovered the story of an Australian World War One soldier.

The diary, discovered by a 12-year-old boy in 1965 in Stourbridge, had a bullet hole through it and was covered in blood. Its final entry was dated 10 August 1918 but little was known about the soldier who had written it.

More than a century later, former Dudley Museum curator, Colin Reid, set out to uncover his identity and discovered his links to the West Midlands.

"We had a man bring in this diary. He'd found it 30 years beforehand in a rubbish tip. We had decided that because there was a local angle to this, we would actually put his diary on display, just with a single red rose."

It eventually came into Reid's hands in 1996, when it was presented to him during an exhibition about the Great War at Dudley Museum.

But the diary raised more questions than it answered.

Reid began searching Australian military service records to piece together the story.

"The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn," he said.

The soldier was identified as Claude Nuttall, an Australian who had been wounded during World War One.

While recovering at Stourbridge Hospital, he met a local woman named Violet. Five weeks after marrying Violet he was sent to war again.

But the service records also revealed a tragic end to Nuttall's story.

"The records show that he was killed in action three days after the last entry in his diary."

Reid's research has now been brought together in a new book, The Digger's Diary.

The book will be launched at Stourbridge Library on 15 October, as part of Dudley History Festival.

"I just felt this is actually a personal story… I couldn't help myself," Reid said.

"Right from the very first moment that I held the diary, I had that real sense of connection with it. I was really hooked."

From a skip in Norton, to a World War One battlefield, the diary had survived for decades and helped bring the story of a soldier, his final days and his connection to Stourbridge back to life.

Reid added: "There was a greater poignancy in something that actually has been created or treasured by somebody… something that kind of records a life."

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