The whole team was captivated by this little boy's diary. His name was Malcolm Blane and he started writing it in 1901 when he was nine. It was rediscovered in 1993, behind a water heater in his house in Nairn. The person who found it told us that she hardly spoke to her family for three days because she was so enthralled that she read it from cover to cover! Although hugely entertaining, Malcolm's diaries have a sombre side to them. We read them knowing that this bright, likeable little boy, was killed in action at the Battle of Loos in 1915, aged 23.

One of our favourite pages shows train routes between Inverness and Perth, meticulously drawn. Malcolm was fascinated by trains and their routes, and many of his maps show stations which no longer exist. He also describes the procession through Nairn in celebration of the coronation of Edward VII in 1902, with its "fancy dress bicycles....decorated with flags and tishiue (tissue) paper". Malcolm's spelling quite often amused and puzzled us! We can read about great state events in the history books, but to have a child's eyewitness account seems so much more special.