A South Australian RSL is searching for answers after a diary dating back more than a century was left at its doorstep earlier this week. The diary belonged to a merchant seaman who served during WW1. But mystery still surrounds its origins, and why it was left anonymously.
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00:00We were opening up the doors for the day and it was in a little plastic bag. I picked it up and I said what is this?
00:09And then I pulled the book out and I could see that it was a bit tattered looking and I was like this is not junk mail.
00:15So it's a 1904.
00:17Much to her surprise, the Semaphore RSL manager had picked up a diary dating back more than 100 years.
00:26It was left anonymously at the club in the most unusual of circumstances.
00:31It's not normally randomly just kind of left on the ground and just you know left there and the person's just gone and hasn't let us know.
00:40I doubt very much if it would have been a family member because if family members want their stuff to be remembered then they'll come and talk to us about it.
00:51The diary belonged to Walter James Dunhill, a merchant seaman with the Australian Navy.
00:57He's talking about profane and horrible language, you know, which sailors get used to pretty quickly.
01:03Through his own research, Derek Meadows found that Dunhill was born in Theverton in 1878 and the diary contained entries from World War One.
01:13He was on a civilian ship working during World War One so obviously he was in danger a lot of that time.
01:22Mr Meadows says although the handwriting is difficult to read, he expects the diary will reveal details about Dunhill's life.
01:31We've got a lot of historical memorabilia here of that era but I've never seen a diary written over so many years.
01:41The RSL is asking anyone who may know anything about the diary to come forward to help uncover the mystery of its origins.
01:49Just come in, talk to us, give us a ring and let us know more about this man's story.
01:54Efforts in the present to reveal more about our past.