SILSDEN soldier Arthur Hyde’s life was saved in a German barrage thanks to a present from his dad.

A piece of shrapnel struck Private Hyde in the left breast over his heart but was stopped by a pocket wallet given by father George.

In a letter home to his wife Caroline, Arthur told how the wallet saved him from a “nasty wound” during the enemy attack on trenches in France.

He wrote: “I went over the top twice, and assisted in taking the enemy’s first line. I had not been there above two hours when a shell landed fairly on top of the parapet and buried me.

“The shrapnel ripped my pocket clean off and penetrated the wallet. You will see in this letter the hole the shrapnel has made if you look the way it has folded. It beats all the German souvenirs we can get.”

Arthur said his comrade Jess Denby, from Utley, was standing next to him during the 4pm attack but was not touched.

Two months later Arthur was reported missing, and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of the Germans.

Discharged in 1919, his disabilities were listed as deformity of toes aggravated by war service, and decayed teeth probably caused by his treatment as a POW.