William Raws

Raws recorded that some friends, who had read the diary he kept during his service, encouraged him to make a more formal memoir of it and so he did in August 1916. This is a mechanical copy of a typescript, with a photograph of the author pasted into the front pages. It has 141 folios, it is cloth bound, the foredges are gilded and the title, ‘My life in the army’ appears in gilt lettering on the spine. The author states that he produced a number of copies; this one was sent to one of the nurses – Nurse Proctor – whom he met in Dublin during his recuperation. It is a hybrid production, in terms of genre, because while it is clearly based on – and uses the immediate language of – an actual diary, it has been revised to become a more controlled narrative which includes, for example, accounts given to his parents about his illness.

‘My life in the army’

1914

1915