An autograph book dating from 1917 has been taken into the care of the Hythe Civic Society.

The book was a Christmas present to Hythe woman Kathleen Ralphs at the last Christmas of the First World War. As a result, most of the people in the book are soldiers or airmen, about to embark for the Western Front. She kept good care of it throughout the 1900s and eventually handed it over to a London newspaper journalist in 1989.

He then gave it to the Kentish Express, which wrote a story about it last month.

Now it is to be returned to its home town in the care of the society.

Jane Twist, of the society, said: “The book is part of the history of our town. We have a secure archive of materials from our town, full of local interest such as photographer John Adams’ photographic library.

“Hythe was a very serious army town even up to the 1950s, when the small arms school was still going. We get people logging on to Hythe’s website and writing to us wanting to know about the town in the war and other things.”

Hythe’s military background included the small arms school, based where the Seeboard building was built, hence the row of military cottages next to the garage. Opposite them is the former barracks site, now a park with barrack huts represented by stones in the grass.

As well as messages and poems in the book, there are pictures copied from magazines and contemporary scenes. They include a steamship, a couple of street urchins resting in a Comfort Soap box, a self-portrait of a man called D. B. Waldrop, a man in evening dress making advances to a shop window dummy in Harrods, and a seaplane.

Names in the book include G.H. Priestly of the Sherwood Foresters, Cpl G.W. Rolfe, of Ripon, Yorkshire, Henry Septimous Mullen, Jarrow, and closer to home, there was a Driver Wray from Dibgate camp and Flt Cpl Millen of the then-new RAF.

Anyone who wishes to see the autograph book or who may have a relation in it, should call the Hythe Civic Society secretary on 01303 268423.

BLOB The Kentish Express has not been able find much information about who Kathleen Ralphs was – if anyone knows more, please call us on 01303 851362.