'Trench memories' shared on web

A 90-year-old diary chronicling the brutal reality of the trenches in the Somme has been published online.

The Experiences of a Very Unimportant Officer, by Captain Alexander Stewart, had been left on a bookshelf after being passed around family members.

But the war veteran's grandson, Cameron Stewart, 49, from Bristol, decided the book merited a wider audience and is discussing a deal to have it printed.

He said: "I realised it was far too important to be left on the shelves."

I saw a man in the trench calmly kneeling down and taking careful aim at me... but in some miraculous way he missed Captain Alexander Stewart

Capt Stewart's account of his time in the Scottish regiment, the Cameronians, has attracted interest from across the world since grandson Cameron set up a website ahead of Remembrance Sunday.

"I looked at the diary during a visit to my father's home in Somerset earlier this year," he said.

"The bit that most struck me was his account of smoking a pipe while attacking German trenches - it was clear this man thought his chances of survival were nil."

Capt Stewart describes in his memoirs how, as he advanced on the German trench, he was annoyed about stashing his pipe in his pocket while bombarding the enemy with machine gun fire.

He wrote in his journal: "After my third or fourth shot, I found that the bowl of my pipe and the smoke from it was obscuring my line of vision. Much to my annoyance, I had to put my pipe in my pocket alight as it was; it was lucky that it did not burn my jacket.

'Shell fragment'

"Just as I got my rifle working I saw a man in the trench calmly kneeling down and taking careful aim at me.

"At the moment I saw him he fired. But in some miraculous way he missed."

Capt Stewart's spell in the war ended in September 1917 when a shell fragment hit him in the throat.

He died aged 86 in 1964.