VOLUNTEERS flick through historic diaries in York, telling remarkable stories of life on the front line in the First World War.

William ‘Wass’ Reader’s secret diaries were written in shorthand and remained secret for nearly a century.

But staff at York Castle Museum issued an appeal and they were successfully decoded.

As reported in The Press yesterday, the diaries tell of life during the Palestine Campaign from 1917-18

Wass served with C Company of the Ist East Riding Yeomanry and wrote of the horrors of the war, but also wrote about the good-looking nurses, football and the insufferable lice

The diaries are on display in the Museum's First World War exhibition 1914: When The World Changed Forever.