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FROM BBC SPOTLIGHT SOUTH WEST ENGLAND TV

Two diaries by a soldier which describe life on the front line during World War One have been discovered in Devon.

They were found by Valerie Harper in a chest in her attic when she was moving house in Plymouth.

Ms Harper said she was keen to return them to the family of the man who wrote them, Herbert Cecil Algar.

Mr Algar's memories were written when he was serving in the 1st Royal Devon Yeomanry and cover a period from September 1915 to July 1918.

The diaries were found in a packing chest in Ms Harper's home, but it was two years before she realised what they were.

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I kind of fell in love with him because, with all this awful stuff happening, he managed to find interest in other things”

Valerie Harper
"I thought they were just old books and I didn't know where they came from, so I put them to one side," she told BBC News.

Ms Harper has tried, but so far failed, to find the previous owners of the house to see if she can trace Mr Algar's family and return his "amazing" diaries.

In the diaries, Mr Algar describes setting off from Liverpool in 1915, bound for Gallipoli.

Fallen comrades
On 25 September, he wrote: "All aboard were in high spirits and we were escorted by three destroyers - soon saw the last of dear old England."

By November 1915, he and his comrades were under heavy shelling from the Turks.

On 9 November, he wrote: "My birthday - reached my coming of age [21]."

Two days later, after shelling had intensified, he wrote about the death of the "best officer" Cpt Teddy Hain, from St Ives in Cornwall, which had "cast a gloom over the whole regiment".

Valerie Harper with WW1 diary

1911


Herbert Cecil Algar

Age in 1911:16
Estimated birth year:abt 1895
Relation to Head:Son
Birth Place:Plymouth, Devon

Civil Parish:Plymouth
County/Island:Devon

Street address:28 Broad Park Rd, Peverell, Plymouth

Marital Status:Single
Occupation:Apprentice
Registration district:Plymouth


Edwin Joseph Algar 59
Virginia Whiddon Algar 58
Beatrice Alice Algar 32
Virgie Loye Algar 31
Dorothy Maude Algar 18
Herbert Cecil Algar 16

Name:
Herbert C Algar

Spouse Surname:Wenmoth
Date of Registration:Apr-May-Jun 1929
Registration district:St Germans
Inferred County:Cornwall
Volume Number:5c
Page Number:69



Marriages Jun 1929
Algar Herbert C - Wenmoth - St. Germans 5c 69
Wenmoth Beatrice A- Algar -St.Germans 5c 69

There is a record for a birth with Algar/ Wenmoth (?) combination on freebmd

Person may still be living.

there are a couple of trees on ancestry with him on, one with child apparently still living.

Deaths Jun 1968 (>99%)
ALGAR HERBERT C 73 PLYMOUTH 7A 668

His son is on the public ER up to 2007

No sign of a marriage for the son.............