Private 12768: Memoir of a Tommy

A newly discovered account of life in the trenches that challenges our perception of how British troops viewed the First World War.

There is no shortage of personal accounts from the First World War. So why publish another memoir? The principal reason is the tone of enthusiasm, pride and excitement conveyed by its author, Private John Jackson.

Jackson served on the Western Front from 1915 until the war's end; he was present at Loos in 1917, on the Somme in 1916, in Flanders in 1917; he was on...