A CHEPSTOW author has explored her grandfather’s memoirs as a soldier in the First World War to produce a critically-acclaimed book.

Susan Burnett, who lives in Pwllmeyric, used Norman Woodcock’s records – including his recollections of being a soldier at the bloody Gallipoli campaign in 1915 – for On That Day I Left My Boyhood Behind.

Mr Woodcock was born in 1897 and grew up in Leeds. He was called up when he was 17 and served across all fronts during the Great War. He had not left his home country before leaving for Europe.

His notes remained unpublished before his granddaughter decided she must do something with them and reveal the hardships he suffered.

Mr Woodcock, who died in 1989, wrote how he had seen the first of his fellow soldiers killed on the way to Gallipoli: “A shell burst, hitting the boat and him. The boat was packed and all we could do was watch as he bled to death. His colour changed – he became whiter as his sunburn became paler.”

In the book, his contempt for senior British officers is recorded, and that he cried every Armistice Day in memory of his fallen comrades.

Ms Burnett said: “When I sat down and read the whole lot [of memoirs] I hadn’t realised he had been to Mesopotamia and Greece, even though some bits he had talked about quite a bit.

“It took quite a bit of time to type up from his hand written memoirs but a friend, who is an excellent typist, helped me type them up."

Coincidentally Mr Woodcock landed on the same Gallipoli beach as Chepstow’s Victoria Cross hero, Able Seaman William Charles Williams, on April 25, 1915.

The centenary of those landings, Able Seaman Williams' bravery and death, after he was killed having withstood an hour's enemy fire to secure the HMS River Clyde, will be held in Chepstow next month.

Ms Burnett will travel to the Cenotaph in London that day to mark the same failed campaign. It ended in January 1916, with the loss of about 214,000 Allied troops.

The book has earned praise from the journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and a historian of the Gallipoli Association, Stephen Chambers.

For more information visit Ms Burnett’s website, susanburnett.me.uk