Bernard eyre walker biography examples

(Blackthorn Press, 2020), £18.00, paperback, 192 pages with illustrations ISBN 978–1–906–25958–7

Bernard Eyre Walker’s diary was lost – not recently, as it has been known to be in the Liddle Collection for many years – but during the great retreat caused by the Kaiserslacht.

It was returned to him some years after the war ended as the German soldier who found it passed it over to TocH.

Bernard was a stretcher bearer with a Field Ambulance and therefore moved casualties behind the lines, rather than in the Front Line, those expecting descriptions of life at the front may, therefore, be disappointed.

The diary is in two parts as Bernard landed in France in December 1914, was wounded in May 1915 and didn’t return to the Western Front until 1917: it appears that he made only the briefest account of his time as a convalescent.

There is a short section at the end, written from memory, describing what happened to Bernard during the retreat, followed by a section by the editor describing