Carolyn Graham

Carolyn Graham discovered her grandfather John Wood’s First World War diaries and photographs after her father’s death, having long believed they had been destroyed.

John, a Lancashire physics teacher, served with the Royal Army Medical Corps at casualty clearing stations during the battles of the Somme and Third Ypres (Passchendaele), before transferring to the Royal Engineers, where he worked on the pioneering sound-ranging technology used to locate enemy artillery. Intrigued by this little-known technology, Carolyn began researching her grandfather’s wartime experiences and the scientific work taking place behind the Western Front.

A former criminal solicitor, Carolyn now sits as an independent panel member at police misconduct hearings. Her forthcoming book draws on her grandfather’s diaries, aerial photographs and rare original sound-ranging strips recording German guns firing on the Western Front, to tell the wider story of his wartime service and the people, places and technological developments he encountered.