Remembrances of Hell - The Great War Diary of Writer, Broadcaster and Naturalist
It was not until 1958 that the writer, broadcaster and naturalist, Norman Ellison, eventually completed his diary of a soldier's life in the trenches of Flanders in World War One. This man of sensitivity was, as were all men on that dreadful battlefield, to become familiar with the routine horrors of squalor, death and pain. When he was demobilised in 1920, at the age of 26, he turned his field diary aside, believing '...others have written better books than I could ever hope to write'.
It was not until the looming threat of the second great war arose, with the rise of German militarism, that he reconsidered publishing his recollections to warn a younger generation of the truth of war. Some of his friends said his book would be an unfair influence on the minds of the immature, and others recommended publication. The result was that the War Diary was never published. Instead, it was, along with his letters and memoirs, bequeathed to the Liverpool Libraries Record Office, where it has remained until now.