A Tommy's Sketchbook by Henry Buckle

A Tommy’s Sketchbook by Henry Buckle

A Tommy’s Sketchbook by Henry Buckle – Diary and Drawings from the Trenches – is a very nice book. I bought it from the gift shop of the Tank Museum. It’s a diary and sketchbook of a soldier in WWI. He spent a bit over an year fighting, before being injured and returning back home to the UK. His sketches aren’t amazing, but they are good (better than anything I could do), his diary just shows the everyday life of an ordinary man. This is what makes this book so interesting, how common his experiences were for many of his peers, soldiers in the trenches living the same life as he did.

I read it in a different way that most people read it. I couldn’t stop myself from comparing what I was reading in the book with the experiences of the soldiers who are now in the trenches, facing very similar problems. This makes the book relevant today.

The style of writing is lovely, clear, and genuine. His sketches are showing both the good and the bad of everyday life of soldiers and, most intriguing, of the life of the civilians, as he mentions them from time to time. I am glad I bought the book and I would recommend it.