Search for owner of 100-year-old journal found at Staffordshire college

It includes photographs from the First World War, poetry, sketches and a gift from a father to his daughter on her first birthday.

Staff at the Lichfield campus of South Staffordshire College are now desperately trying to reunite the book with its rightful owner.

Claire Pinder-Smith, work experience co-ordinator at the college, said the book had been found at the back of a set of drawers by the college caretaker.

Claire said some of the entries date back as far as 1898, although most of them seem to have been made during the early years of the First World War.

"It looks like the person who was keeping it was doing it in the First World War, as there are a number of comments written between 1914 and 1916," said Claire.

"There are poems in there, and there is a postcard picture of a house, I don't know what the significance of that is, and some of it is written in French."

Inside the book is the dedication: "To Gwen Bushill, on her first birthday, from Dad."

The book also contains the badge of the South Lancashire Regiment, 55th Division, and a signature from Pte E Thompson of the 1/4 South Staffordshire Regiment, dated June 30, 1918. Another signature appears to read 'Ernest Luckwell Lieut, 11th Earl Lancs."

There is a poem dedicated to the owner of the book by H A Bromwich, dated March, 1912, which says: "May she to whom this book belongs, have little care, if any. Her years of joy may they be full, her years of gladness many."

It also includes the signatures of school classmates, and various drawings, including one dedicated to Gwen dated 1915, featuring two young girls standing either side of a wall, entitled 'their first tiff'. Another sketch, of a dog in a military cap, is entitled 'War Dog'.

Claire believes it has probably been brought into college by a student for a project, but has no idea of when.

"It could have been here 20-odd years," she said.

"We did contact somebody who had a similar name, but we drew a blank. We would really like to find who it belongs to, as whoever has lost it must be distraught."

* Do you know who the book belongs to? Please call us on 01952 241491 or email Mark.andrews@expressandstar.co.uk