Messages penned by hundreds of servicemen as they made their way to and from the First World War are being published for the first time.
Among them are words written by soldiers with links to Norfolk, including 2nd Lt Thomas William Armes, Leading Telegraphist Thomas William Bacon, Pte James Philip Hare and Sapper Sidney Samuel Riches.
They were some of the troops who, between 1916 and 1917, stopped at the now derelict Peterborough East Railway Station and wrote in visitors' books kept in the station’s tea room run by the temperance movement
Now their messages are being digitised for a special memorial project, and organisers are appealing for people to help them find out more about each soldier.
From May 5 – 100 years to the day the books started – the plan is to share each serviceman’s message and story on the anniversary of the day he passed through the city.
These tributes will be shared on a special website, via social media and on screens in Peterborough. The website – www.peterboroughww1.co.uk – is launching on 13 January, so people can find out if their relatives wrote in the books and share information and photographs.
Richard Hunt, from Vivacity Culture and Leisure, which is helping orchestrate the project on behalf of Peterborough Library, said: "There are over 580 entries in all.
“Some are simple words of thanks, others talk of love and hope.
“Together, they provide a unique insight to the servicemen's thoughts and feelings and we want to try to paint a personal picture of the men who once found comfort in Peterborough.
“We have found out some of the facts of some of their lives, but are appealing for their descendants to come forward to add colour to the stories of these heroes."
Among the Norfolk soldiers whose messages feature are Second Lieutenant Thomas Armes, of the Norfolk Regiment, who studied at the Cambridge School of Art and was awarded a scholarship to study in The Hague.
When the First World War broke out he joined the army and served at the front in France before eventually being invalided out.
After the war he became a prolific artist and during the Second World War served in the Home Guard. He settled in Sheringham with his wife, Myra. His son Marcus now lives in Norwich.
Another local hero was Leading Telegraphist Thomas Bacon, who was born in 1895 in Cromer. The 1911 census shows that his father, also called Thomas, was a Naval Pensioner and Pier Attendant.
Bacon followed in his father's naval footsteps and during the First World War served on HMS Marlborough, which was involved in the Battle of Jutland.
He married in the early 1920s and may have been living in the Norwich area in the 1970s.
In the same decade Sapper Sidney Riches died in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada, where emigrated in after the war.
The military engineer, who was born in Hales in 1888, was a blacksmith before joining the war effort and becoming a Sapper in the Royal Engineers. He married Sarah Pugh in Norwich in 1917 before moving to Canada in 1920.
One soldier who did not make it through the Great War was Pte James Hare, born in Norwich in about 1896. He served in the Norfolk Regiment and later the Essex Regiment and was killed in action at the Somme on March 8, 1917 – just five months after writing in the visitor book.
The project has been funded by a £99,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant.
