Private Bert Hattersley was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. For his nephew, the letters and primitive diary found in the dugout where Bert spent his last night are a poignant memorial of the brief lives snuffed out by the First World War Bert was a packer in the dispatch department of the Nottingham firm of I. and R. Morley Ltd, “Makers of High Quality Hosiery”. He used to boast to his friends that his company made stockings for Queen Mary and he sometimes even claimed that he had personally addressed a parcel to Buckingham Palace. But it was not his undoubted patriotism that prompted him, in the early weeks of 1914, to join the Territorials. Bert had never seen the sea. And the recruitment poster promised a week at “Fascinating Filey”. So he l