Tommy's record of Christmas truce is auctioned

A POIGNANT souvenir of the First World War Christmas truce of 1914 is to be auctioned at Bonhams today.

Rifleman Bernard Brookes, of Tooting, tore a page from his Army pay book and got names and addresses of three German soldiers when troops met in no man's land.

The names - under the heading "Xmas Day, 1914 German Signatures, Chappelle d'Armentiers" - are on the back of a will he pencilled and are expected to fetch £600.

Brookes's grandson has published his war diary, in which the 2nd Battalion Queen's Westminster Rifles soldier described getting souvenirs from German soldiers. He wrote: "I have a number of Germ (sic) signatures and addresses on a fly of my Active Service Pay Book and it was arranged that at the end of the war we would write one to the other if we came through safely."

The diaries of a young lieutenant describing Passchendaele and the Somme are also on sale, with a £1,500 price. The graphic accounts of Walter Lang are mixed with his letters home.