I’d like to share with you a picture of my Grandfather, Ronald Shrubsole.

He was just 18 when this was taken. Though he is no longer with us, I hope he won’t mind me saying
in public that he didn’t look this fresh-faced and enthusiastic when he returned home from the war.

He was with the 8th Army, fighting in Africa and then Italy in the Second World War.

It was clear to me from having spoken with members of my family that the war had a profound effect on Ron—he wasn’t the man he was when he left south London. He never spoke about his wartime service, only giving very small insights to my Dad as he reached his eighties.

These are special images and help us keep the stories alive of those special people that gave everything to fight for freedom.

There goes a saying that “there is nothing more scary than an officer with a map”.

British Army officers in the First World War were provided with trench maps to help them orientate and get used to the ground they were holding.

From early 1915 the Geographical Section of the General Staff began to produce trench maps. Together with a team of Royal Engineer observers who would reconnoitre ground with support from surveyors from the Ordnance Survey in Southampton, the process of creating up-to-date maps for the Army was underway.

Below is a picture of one of my favourite possessions, my Great-Grandfather’s original trench maps.

He was part of an attack on High Wood on the Somme when as he advanced he was hit by machine gun fire in the thigh. The bullet smashed through his trench maps as you can see from the photograph and the stain on the bottom right of the map is his blood.

The agony continued for my Great-Grandfather as he was bayonetted shortly after being shot, but thankfully he survived this ordeal and the war and got back home to London.

His maps somehow were saved from the great burning of his Army possessions by his wife, who was adamant she didn’t want them in the house. I imagine that the memories of nearly losing her husband in the war were evoked by his uniform and other apparatus and so they had to go. I’m glad I still have his trench maps.