WWI soldier Claude Nuttall's bloodstained diary, found in a tip in 1965, tells a wartime love story

Left · 2The diary of Australian infantryman Corporal Claude Nuttall, which has a bullet hole and bloodstains, was found in a rubbish tip in Stourbridge, West Midlands, by a boy looking for toys. 1 2 Left · 2Both outlets name the boy as 12-year-old Alan Southall and date the find to 1965, 47 years after Nuttall's death. His father read the diary and explained it belonged to an Australian soldier. 1 2 Left · 2Nuttall met Violet Palfreyman while recovering from wounds at Wordsley Hospital in Stourbridge, Worcestershire. They married in March 1918 and had five weeks together before he returned to the front in France. 1 2

Left · 2A sniper killed him at the Battle of Amiens, three days after his last diary entry on 10 August 1918, which was about three months before Armistice Day. That entry mentions a bombardment, a captured 11¼ inch gun and a letter to 'Vi'. 1 2 Left · 2The diary also records his wedding day, with a ceremony at 12.30pm and photographs at 1.15pm. Another entry describes King George V presenting him with the Military Medal for rescuing fallen comrades in No Man's Land in 1916. 1 2 Left · 2Military records show he enlisted in the Australian Army after his 20th birthday in 1915 and was first sent to Egypt with the 23rd Battalion. Heavy losses on the Western Front then took him to France. He was one of around 8,000 Australian soldiers who married English women during the war. 1 2

Left · 2The diary was kept by Violet's son and husband after she died. It later reached author Colin Read, 69, who spent years tracing Nuttall's family through adverts in local papers. Read says Violet married again five or six years after Nuttall's death, emigrated to New Zealand, came back, and died of complications during childbirth. 2 1 Left · 2Read's book, The Digger's Diary, will be launched at Stourbridge Library on 15 October at the Dudley History Festival. Nuttall is commemorated each year by villagers on the Somme. 1 2 Left · 1The Mirror adds context on Amiens. It describes the battle as the opening of the Allied offensive, with up to 100,000 soldiers pushing the German Second Army back, and says about 10,000 Allied soldiers died. It also says the diary's damage is believed to come from a wound that put him in hospital in the UK. 2