Essex Record Office (ERO) holds many collections containing stories of men and women who served during the First World War. The vast majority refer to men who were posted to the Western Front. However, a recently-deposited family collection included a diary and photographs, which revealed the experiences in an overlooked theatre of war of a motor cyclist with 26th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps serving in British East Africa. This article is a case study based on the type of papers which can be found in local Record Offices.

The diary was written by Harry Joseph Edward Ripper who was born on 18 September 1897, the second son of Harry Tucker Ripper and Edith Sarah Ripper.