Sister Edith Appleton during World War I

The Manchester Evening News reports the moving story of sister Edith Appleton and private Charles Kerr, of the 17th Battalion Manchester Regiment.

Sister Appleton kept a journal focused on what she witnessed during five years on the Western Front and her words have been published in a book (War Diaries: A Nurse at the Front).

One of the episodes she records is how she looked after private Kerr in the days before he died from the effects of gas, bronchitis and pneumonia in France on 12 March 1916.

The newspaper reports how his great-great-niece Nicola Mortimer has been able to meet Edith’s great-nephew Dick Robinson, who got the diaries published after retrieving them from a drawer. They met at the Imperial War Museum North.

Sister Appleton named more than 200 people in her diaries, including many soldiers who passed through her field hospital in northern France.

Pte Kerr was 21 when he died in the town of Etretat. Nicola has no photographs of him.

The Imperial War Museum North is hosting an exhibition called Saving Lives about battlefield medicine and care, which runs until September.

For the Manchester Evening News story click here.