TODAY we look at more extracts from the diary of a Nelson cotton worker who survived both the Eastern and Western Fronts, serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War.

Born in Grey Street, Barrowford, in 1887, Private 35699 James Woods, of the 34th Field Ambulance, sailed for the Gallipoli peninsula on July 1, 1915.

During the five months until the evacuation in December, 2015, he kept a diary on scraps of paper. This was later copied by his sister Mabel and came into the possession of his grand niece Margaret Harrop, nee Woods.

Nelson author Fred Stringer has turned the entries into historical records.

After Gallipoli, Pte Woods was posted to the Western Front via Marseille where he stayed until the end of the war.

He returned to Nelson, became an overlooker at William Uttley’s cotton mill, and lived in the town until his death in 1963, aged 76.

We meet up with Pte Woods on August 8, 2015 when he wrote: “Up at dawn, had a little tea with bully and biscuits and then took all our stores on stretchers to the beach where the Salt Lake began.

“Had to go with our officers to look for wounded who we found in large numbers, together with dead.

“We made a dressing station beside a well which was well marked by snipers, for many a poor fellow was killed while coming away with his water bottle full. The bullets were singing past us all day.

“We set off back to stay the night at the dressing station, but lost our way in the dark for it was two miles from the beach. We met three of our own snipers and asked them the way but they could not tell us and advised us to go back on the beach with them, sleep the night and go at break of day.

“Yesterday and today, our battleships have been pouring shells on the enemy’s positions.”

August 9, 2015. “What a day; we set off to the dressing station at the break of day, but never got there, for our lads were retiring, the enemy had been reinforced.

“We were stopped to dress some of the wounded and all the time shells were bursting all over Salt Lake — and how we were missed, God alone knows.

“We had to load the boats with wounded up to our waists in water. But as the weather was hot we took no ill effects from it. By this time the Turks were shelling the beach where our hospital was.

“Now it seems more like a nightmare than reality, and I for one thank God I came through safely and hope to do so til the end.”