From humble roots came a hero of his time. At 26 years old, just as he was embarking on an apprenticeship that would secure his future, and after being reunited with his mother after a childhood spent apart from her, Reg Evans found himself on the front line in France, facing the enemy in the Great War.

One of many brave, hardworking men who enlisted, Reg’s personal experiences of World War One are retold here through his letters and diaries, which have been meticulously and lovingly collected together by his daughter, Pamela Armitage Campbell. They tell the tale of a boy born into a family dealing with the death of a father, of that boy’s youth and of his journey into battle in 1914.

Decorated for his bravery on the front line in 1915, Reg was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) before suffering an injury that cost him most of his jaw and sent him away from the battlefields. But, the hero that he was, he refused to bow out of the war, and after pioneering surgery and a period of recovery, Reg volunteered to continue to serve for the British forces in Russia. He was posted far away from home until 1920, long after his peers had been demobbed.

A story to inspire and remind us how many ordinary men were made extraordinary in a brutal and bloody war.

Reg’s incredible tale is one of several featured in ITV’s television series The Great War: The People's Story. Taken together, they form a personal, moving and at times humorous set of accounts of courage, fortitude, love and loyalty in one of the worst wars in modern history.

The other books are: Alan Lloyd – The Lost Generation by Isobel Charman, Kate Parry Frye – The Long Life of an Edwardian Actress and Suffragette by Elizabeth Crawford, and The Great War – The People's Story by Isobel Charman, which accompanies the series and includes the entire story of the war, featuring all of the characters.