James Cryer recently discovered a handwritten diary of his grandfather who left Sydney in 1913 as a 21-year old letterpress printer to try his hand working across the US.
James is typing up the diary as it may be – possibly – the only first-hand account of life and times and the printing industry as it was (warts and all) in that pre-war era.
![](http://www.jdaprintrecruit.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/postcards2-300x232.jpg)
Some of the hundreds of postcards Walter James Cryer II sent from the United States during 1914 to his fiancee-to-be, who was waiting patiently back in Sydney.