Forgotten Treasures

Today I went up the attic, as as lot of us do at this time of year, to dig the Christmas decorations out. And as usual whilst I was up there I had a root about, you know the story, long forgotten old photos "did I really dress like that"and "what was that drunk at the party called". Then from a box in a dark corner I pulled out two dusty old leather bound books with "Autographs" printed in gold leaf on the covers. Now when we see an autograph book we think of a collection of signatures of pop or sport stars, but these books date from 1912- 1930 and the idea back then was for friends, family and acquaintances to write a verse, draw a picture or cartoon. "So what" you may say, but what I find special about one of the books in particular is that a lot of the entry's are finished with "somewhere in France" and "on active service" obviously written by first world war soldiers fighting in the trenches and battlefields of France. I wonder if Horace Dickinson survived the war, he wrote on sept 16th 1915 " Our way is not perhaps the best, but if our aims are high, our disappointments are lest , and not to cause our hope to die" he was from Bolton but on active service in France. I have added a couple of picture from the books, as usual click to enlarge and if anybody wants to see more just say so in the comment box.