Private Birley had kept a small journal with him and an excerpt from it explains in great detail his journey when he left Canada with the 84th Battalion towards England. This journal was passed down to his grand-nephew, Bill Birley from Paris, Ontario, who then donated it to the Paris Museum and Historical Society.

In the bloodshed and chaos that is the battlefields of the First World War, hundreds of thousands of young Canadian men sign up to fight for their country overseas — but there's one who sticks out from the crowd. His bravery and fearlessness are legendary. His fellow soldiers call him Peggy.