WHAT started out as a few jotted memories by ex-soldier Norman Hickie has turned into more than 100 pages of the highs and lows of a Great Harwood lad's life during the war.

Norman's War Diary documents his life between December 1939, when he enlisted in the East Lancashire Regiment, and April 1946, when he returned from Hamburg, Germany, to be demobbed. In between there's the excitement of joining the carrier section, living the Dad's Army lifestyle, the events that kept him laughing - and the sadness for fallen comrades.

Norman, 81, said: "I've always had a good memory and when I started to jot things down it all came together."

Norman's friends at Peter Davies Estate Agents, Great Harwood, helped him print the diary and there are four copies in circulation.

Extracts are to be published in the Queen Alexandra's Royal Corps of Nursing Associates Gazette.

You can enquire about borrowing a copy from Davies's at 13 Queen Street, Great Harwood.