Photographs, and pristine and neatly handwritten manuscripts accompany the box of slides, which were once used by the Inniskilling soldier to give presentations and talks about his experiences in China. His photographs and remarkable experiences abroad almost 100 years ago have been recounted for us in a beautiful book titled 'The Corporal and the Celestials' complied and edited by Bill Jackson.
History has bonded these two men in a most fascinating time warp.
Bill Jackson recalled that over 50 years ago, when he was aged just 17, James Hutchinson, who was then aged in his 70's, have him 250 slides; 150 post card size negatives; notebooks containing manuscripts three maps and some coins on a string.
"Virtually all related to his time in China as a soldier in the Inniskillings. He was the much esteemed honorary treasurer in my father's Ballywalter Parish," he said.
What Corporal Hutchinson captured with his camera, and his notes almost 100 years ago is a snapshot of history, and a window on daily life in China, including Peking, Tientsin, as well as the customs and manners of the people, and the temples and great sights, as well as battalion life, in the true spirit of a modern day travel writer; documentary maker or nascent ethnographer.
Mr Jackson has carried the heavy slide boxes and books with him all his own life's journey and it is only recently in his retirement that he set about writing the book. He said he never felt the boxes of lantern slides were burden of responsibility.
"I felt it was a debt of honour and a labour of love," he said.
"He never mentioned a publication to me," he said.
"He must have given them to me, because as a lad I was interested in other people and countries," he said.
"I started giving talks myself and I used those slides to give talks," he said.
He said the photographer had worked on the slides with no dark room facilities and had hand coloured some of them.
The corporal from Coolbanagher County Laois, born 1886, enlisted in the Inniskillings, and served in North China from 1909 -1912, with the 1st Battalion Royal Inniskillings Fusiliers.
Mr Jackson recalled he spoke with a "lovely Laois brogue" and that while he was a serious man, he had a great sense of humour and twinkling eyes.
"He was badly injured in Gallipoli and lost much of his thumb. I remember he would hold his pipe in the crook of his thumb," he said.
His wife Emily was also from Laois, and he remembers her as a lovely woman, always smiling and laughing.
"It was a WWI marriage, and I think they got a day's leave for their honeymoon. He survived the 1914-18 war, and them served as a soldier in Omagh and later in a depot in Tipperary and was demobbed in 1918," he said.
His love of photography and a fascination with China, and his work, means that he will be remembered forever in the Inniskillings museum.
Jack Dunlop regimental museum curator said: "The museum hopes to be able to soon mount a small additional section to feature this Chinese interlude in the Regiment's long history. Hutchinson's photographs, maps and texts will be part of the display. The centre-piece would be the museum's magnificent silver Chinese cup presented by the Irish residents of Tientsin and Peking as a tribute to the Regiment's service in protecting Europe's interest from the mutinous Chinese Army in Northern China during 1911," he said.
The book and the collection are significant in terms of the heritage of the Regiment's history, he said. The Battalion was stationed in China at a time which saw the start of the United Nations, after the Boxer rebellion in 1900, and were guarding the British Legation in Peking and Britain's trading Concession in Tientsin.
'The Corporal and the Celestials' is printed by the Ulster Historical Foundation ISBN 978 1 903 688632 and is available in bookshops.
Visit www.inniskilling.com

(Wednesday April 9 2008)
ENDS