IN 1918 there was growing unrest in Brighton.

The end of the Great War was in sight and there was a meat shortage.

Workers were increasingly dissatisfied with how the food committee was distributing provisions.

They felt those doing heavy manual labour were missing out while some who had never “done a stroke of work in their lives” were still able to live on the best there was to offer.

To settle the dispute, the mayor took matters into his own hands, commandeering 90 sheep sold from Haywards Heath market which were intended for a butcher to supply shops in south west London.

This is what life on the home front was really like for those living in Brighton.

Historian, translator and author Douglas d’Enno documents has delved into the every day tales of Brightonians to find out how families lived during the 1914 to 1918 conflict in his latest book Brighton in the Great War.

The 70-year-old, of Saltdean, said: "The First World War has always been an interest – the loss of young life, the battles, how people coped. Everyone knows about Brighton and how it helped the war effort – its hospitals for example – but no books have really looked at what life was really like for the people who lived here.

"In some respects many felt life here during this war was good. The beaches and attractions were open and there was not the bombings like the Second World War."

Douglas, who moved here after falling in love with the area aged 12, added: “I like to break new ground and so decided to do something that had not been done before. I think readers find it interesting too – they like to know what Mrs Bloggs was thinking and people love to see if they are related or have a link. It makes it personal."

The stories are the result of hours of painstaking research, studying historical photographs and postcards, copying and dissecting thousands and thousands of newspaper articles in The Keep archive as well as keeping an eye out for any current references to the period.

A nostalgia article in The Argus published in October 2014 prompted his chapter on Brighton's French Convalescent Home.

He said: “At one point I was taking 600 or 700 shots of newspapers every day for information. I had to check all the information because the details might be different in separate reports.

“Because those with a living memory of the war are gone, newspaper reports which interviewed returning soldiers and reported on the situation at the time are incredibly important.”

He is now turning his attention to the history of Sussex railway stations and a sequel to this book about the Second World War in Brighton.

He added: “The idea came to me in the bath. I thought, if I can do a book on what life was really like in Brighton in the First World War, I could look at the second.”

Brighton in the Great War by Douglas d’Enno is published by Pen and Sword and costs £14.99.