A regional newspaper journalist who has built up a unique collection of interviews with war veterans has had his work published in book form.

Peter Rhodes, left, chief feature writer at Wolverhampton’s Express and Star, built up his compilation of nearly 200 pieces over the course of 25 years.

His book, entitled For a Shilling a Day, begins with an interview with 110-year-old John Evans recalling the death of General Gordon in Khartoum in 1885 and ends with the killing of a Midlands soldier in Afghanistan more than 120 years later.

Peter has been a journalist for 41 years since starting out at the Leamington Spa Courier – although he did not start recording the stories of war veterans until later in his career.

He told HTFP: “Back in 1969 it seemed every other assignment was a golden wedding. If you do the sums, you’ll figure out why. The year 1969 was 50 years after 1919, when the lads came home from the Great War and married their sweethearts.

“Sometimes during those golden-wedding interviews, the old chaps might mention the war. But in the Swinging Sixties no one was much interested in the events of 1914-18. And so, to my regret, I never got on record the memories of the first Great War soldiers I met.

“But as the years turned I began to listen more to what the old warriors had to say. It was a grim tale of mud, blood and lice, of friends who were there one minute and smashed to atoms the next.”

During his time at the Express and Star, Peter interviewed veterans who served in conflicts across the globe, including the First and Second World Wars, the Falklands War and those who served in Iraq, Korea and Vietnam.

He also spent time reporting from the frontline in Sarajevo and the first Gulf War.

In 2002 the Black Country Society published a small compilation of Peter’s work called For A Shilling a Day: Black Country Memories of Warfare, which has now been doubled in length and published by Bank House Books.

And Peter highlighted how important it was for the regional press to recording historical memories such as these.

He added: “Nobody else does this sort of history. When little weeklies vanish, who do old soldiers talk to? And what happens to the millions of such testimonies which are locked away in newspaper archives when a paper closes?”

For A Shilling a Day is published by Bank House Books for £14.99 and is available at bankhousebooks.com