5000 WW1 photos salvaged from trash over the years by dustman

[steve58]

Found this info over on the OFF forums.  Such a shame that the photos ended up in the trash.  Would be great if we were able to see more of the photos, but looks like only 20 were in the article.

A former dustman has amassed one of the Britain's best collections of First World War photographs after spending decades rescuing them from rubbish tips and bins.

Bob Smethurst spent 36 years working as a refuse collector and began saving the remarkable pictures during the 1970s.

He believes as soldiers from the conflict grew old and passed away a lot of their remarkable pictures and memorabilia was often thrown out especially in the 1970s and 1980s. Over three decades Mr Smethurst made it his mission to try and save anything he spotted which otherwise could have been lost forever.

Mr Smethurst, from Sussex, now has more than 5,000 photographs capturing everything from the horror of the trenches to haunting images of young friends smiling together before battle.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10719074/Dustman-saves-5000-rare-First-World-War-photos-from-rubbish-dumps.html

[GDS_Starfury]

Ben Smethurst...  what a great British sounding name.