ABSTRACT

Having previously written about military archaeology, and its role in commemorating the fallen and documenting the experience of warfare in a detached and objective way (Schofield 2002), this chapter takes a different approach: more personal, more intimate. It takes as its starting point my grandfather’s war diary and other related documents, and, as if by excavation, analyses their content and explores the layers of meaning contained within them. It takes the approach of the diary-as-object, in the homes and peoples’ lives that it passed through, and it considers how visceral experiences become the written word – how the message is shaped by material culture.