In Short A First World War soldier’s notebook, containing details of his training as an army chef, has been published by his granddaughter to keep his memory alive.

WHEN Lewis William Grantham scribbled down notes while training to be an army chef during the First World War, it never crossed his mind that one day people would buy them from a bookshop.

But thanks to his granddaughter, Sheila Grantham, 57, of Oak Tree Estate, Preston, that is exactly what they can do after she decided to published 1,500 copies of Grandad’s Cookbook.

“It’s all written in pencil and it’s getting quite faded,” Sheila said. “I think it’s an important piece of history and it would be quite a shame if it just faded away.”

“Because next year is the centenary of the First World War, I thought I would try to put it in print so more people can find out about it. It also makes my granddad live on.”

Sheila was only eight when her grandfather passed away but she has fond memories of eating food he made, especially pickled onions.

It was when her aunt died earlier this year that the book was found and it was passed onto Sheila for safekeeping.

Mr Grantham was 30 when he joined the Army Service Corps in January 1915. His background on the land, working especially with horses, meant he was stationed with a horse transport unit but he was also selected to train as a chef.

Matt Brosnan, curator of the First World War Centenary exhibition at IWM North, said it was common for soldiers with no culinary background to be drafted into cooking duty.

Once he returned to England, Mr Grantham did most of the family cooking, with favourites being liver, mince and marrow bone broth, using vegetables grown in his own garden. Cooking and gardening are both hobbies that are still passed through the Grantham generations.

The book contains all sorts of recipes from Irish stew to fig pudding, as well as ration sizes for troops, but Sheila doubts they would have been able to cook a lot of these on the front lines.

“I would imagine that when you are being fired at and having bombs dropped on you, it must be difficult to make pretty little buns.”

Mr Brosnan said: “The cooking wouldn’t have been quite Michelin Star standards but it would have been enough to cover the basics.

“The army tried to provide soldiers on the frontline with hot food when they could but, behind the lines, where it was safer and there were better facilities, they would make things that were slightly more extravagant and slightly less essential.

“Some of the things in the book, certainly the desserts, would have been less common.”

At the height of the First World War, frontline rations could be as basic as bully beef, hard biscuits and bread, often stale by the time it was eaten.

However, food for today’s armed forces is a very different matter.

Mr Brosnan said: “Food in the army today is quite different in the sense that there is a lot of vacuum packing. It’s almost like the meals you get in the supermarket and zap in the microwave.

“Today, there is a lot more variety in what soldiers can have, from curries to stews and various things.

“There are some similarities in that they are eating things that are quite easy to heat up and to serve in a frontline environment but the ingredients today are a lot more varied.” Sheila hopes to have the book placed in the bookshops of army charities, museums and memorials but will pass the original down to her daughters.

It will soon be available on ebay and at a book signing on Saturday at the Hull People’s Memorial in Whitefriargate.

The cookery book with a no-nonsense approach “IT REMINDED me of how things tasted when I was a child,” Sheila said about the recipes in Grandad’s Cookbook.

The rock cakes are particularly good, she says, but, in the no-nonsense fashion befitting a First World War soldier, the book only includes a list of ingredients and portion sizes. The method and instructions “are left to your common sense,” she says.

For rock cakes, the book’s entry is as follows: “1/2lb flour, teaspoon of baking powder, 2oz currants, 2oz sugar, 1 egg and milk to mix stiffly and then a little nutmeg.”

The level of direction given in the book varies from one recipe to the next. However, if Sheila is ever unsure, she might look to another recipe for “a rough guide”.

But, she insists, “if you’re anything of a cook, it really is all common sense”.

It would be quite a shame if it just faded away Sheila Grantham