A COLLECTION of letters and wartime memorabilia have revealed the remarkable story of a Leigh soldier’s wartime experiences.

Documents and photographs belonging to Tom Smith, who served with the 10th Cheshire Regiment, provide a glimpse into the harsh conditions of life in the trenches of the First World War.

Sgt Smith, who lived in Myrtle Avenue, was awarded three gallantry medals – the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.

He was born in Coleford in Gloucestershire in 1889 and joined the 10th Cheshire Regiment in 1914 as a lance corporal, landing in Havre, France, on September 26, 1915.

For part of his service he was also seconded to the 182nd Company of the Royal Engineers — a tunnelling company which Tom‘s pre-war occupation as a stone mason would have meant he was ideally suited to the role of mining.

During his secondment it is believed he was involved in mining in the Mount St Elio area, just prior to the Somme in 1916.

The documents, kept by Sgt Smith’s grandson Stuart Pinder – the son of former Journal editor Fred Pinder and Sgt Smith’s daughter Betty — include letters to his wife Nellie.

One reads: “There is no wonder us catching cold, as we are in tents yet and it is awful cold at night time. You cannot keep yourself warm and that is not the worst of it; the blooming things do not keep the rain out, and of course it gets on to the blankets and they are wet for you to get into, to sleep.

“I don’t care how soon they move us from here and put us in some billets of some sort, (even) if it is only huts, we could manage to keep warm in them, but it is impossible to keep fit under canvass (in) this sort of weather.”

Sgt Smith served until after the Armistice and returned to Leigh after he was demobbed with the rank of sergeant.

He died at from a heart condition at the age of 49, leaving his wife and five daughters.