TCD MS 10853 folio iii recto
P R E F A C E.
1916
My first thought in writing a full diary of my experience in Training, on Active Service and in Hospital was simply to preserve a personal record of these happenings. However, some few friends read my first attempt and were kind enough to say it was interesting, so I decided to revise the matter and have a few copies taken. The book cannot be very interesting except to my personal friends or the friends of any of my Comrades in the Regiment, but at any rate it portrays fairly clearly I hope what happened to one of the many thousand men who left their civil occupations at the first call when enthusiasm was great and tribunals and group systems were not invented. It has been a pleasure setting down on paper the happy memories of the last two years.
August 15th 1916.
William Raws