A FASCINATING glimpse into the life of a journeyman soldier two centuries ago surfaced in a trawl through the archives of The Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald recently.

By the time the original piece on the recently-discovered diary of a regular soldier who served in the 21st Foot - the Royal North British Fusiliers - from 1805 to 1827 was published the writings of David Brown were already a historical artifact.

Now, 200 years on from the dates covered, they make for a real step back in time - though not, sadly, in terms of British troops being involved in overseas conflicts.

Soldier Brown's Diary was published privately in the days when the only means of transporting an army on land was by sheer foot-slogging, and in his 21 years of active service he fought - and marched - in places as far afield as Ayr and Aboukir, Brighton and Barbados and Coventry and Cuba as Britain maintained her might overseas.

He enlisted in Kilmarnock - almost certainly his home town, soon after the start of the Nineteenth Century, and while much of his diary is full of relatively uninteresting tales of long marches, battles and skirmishes, the devil is in the detail.

Of Palermo, Sicily, he writes: "Nothing particular happened during our stay, only we had two men killed by the Neapolitan Artillery and another two were hung for robbery." Quiet, in comparison to the journey to the Italian island where, after fighting the Turks at Aboukir, and thanks to an outbreak of ophthalmia, "we arrived at Messina with upwards of 200 men, some of them blind of both eyes and others blind in one, and those that could see a little were put in front when we disembarked and those whou could not took hold of his neighbour's coat-tails until we arrived at the general hospital.

Some of Infantryman Brown's narrative is remarkably casual. He relates how, during a discussion with a Lietenant Bloomfield, he tells the officer how he has heard mortar from the enemy, writing later: "'There is no fear for us', said he. In a moment I was knocked down and on turning to my right side I saw Lt. Bloomfield lying alongside me, cut in two by a 36-pounder. I gathered my senses a little and jumped on my feet, gathering his entrails that lay on the ground and put them in a blanket." The officers remains were placed in his coffin for burial the following day.

Far-travelled Brown also saw action in Pisa - "excellent for vegetables and meat of every description" apparently, although he does admire the 'falling tower'! - and, peace having been signed between France and Britain, sailed for troublesome America, where he talks of Washington being "made flat" by British bombardment.

By this time he was a mere ten years into a 22-year spell away from Ayrshire. No such thing as home leave for the military in those days.

Eventually returning to Kilmarnock, he writes: " I was happy to find my mother and father alive. We had a very merry night. I was married a short time later and am now living in happiness with my wife and family, dashing away at the loom and enjoying the fruits of my labour. Who would have thought I would have returned after all these years with a pension of 1/3d (roughly 3p) a day?" Infantryman Brown must have been approaching 40 by then and had certainly earned his pension - we hope he had a long life in which to spend it!