THEY said it would be over by Christmas.

But it soon became evident that the initial waves of troops sent out to fight following the outbreak of World War I would be the first of many with it being another four years before peace returned to our isles.

For those serving on the front line coming home for Christmas 1914 would just be a dream.

And while there families did all they could to send packages and reminders from home, it was always going to be a difficult to time for parted from their loved ones.

The plight also captured the heart and imagination of a young Princess Mary.

Inspired by her many visits to hospitals to see war wounded soldiers, the daughter of King George V wanted to help.

What followed was one of the biggest public appeals and donations to ensure that our soldiers weren't forgotten at Christmas.

The result was the Princess Mary tin which was handed out to more than 400,000 soldiers in 1914 including my great grand father Private William John Marsh, who was serving with the Royal Scots Fusiliers.

He was was among the first soldiers to leave for the war and was one of the "Old Contemptibles," a term used by the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm who famously dismissed the British Expeditionary Force as General French's "contemptible little army."

It holds a few mementoes and even includes a fragile dog tag which survived the trenches. He was injured by shrapnel and captured and imprisoned at Doberitz POW camp in Germany in 1915.

His treasured tin has now passed to me, his great granddaughter, and it will have a particular poignancy on the mantle piece this Christmas - 100 years on since he would have opened.

With hundreds of thousands of families ripped apart by WW1, there was huge support for the soldiers fighting for Britain.

In October 1914, the young Princess Mary, wanted to do something for the war effort.

Her two brothers, Prince Edward (later King Edward VIII) and Prince Albert, (later King George VI), began active service.

It was on October 15, Mary announced her intentions to provide a gift for 'every sailor afloat and every soldier at the front' in a letter sent out from Buckingham Palace.

Just days later, the fund had received more than £12,000 in donations. The following week this amount had risen to £31,000.

And by the time the fund was closed in 1920, more than £160,000 had been donated.

The money was used to create gift boxes for soldiers, sailors, nurses and other people involved in the war effort at Christmas 1914.

The Christmas Gift Fund committee comprised of the Duke of Devonshire was committee chairman supported by Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, the treasurer Lord Revelstoke, and the secretary Rowland Berkeley.

The boxes were five inches long, three and a quarter wide and one and a quarter deep, with a hinged lid. In the centre of the lid is an image of Princess Mary, surrounded by a wreath, with two Princess Mary 'M' monograms beside this.

Inscribed on a cartouche at the top of the box are the words Imperium Britannicum, a reference to Britain's imperial power. Around the edge of the box are the names of Britain's allies in the First World War; Belgium, France, Servia, Montenegro, Russia and Japan. At the bottom is inscribed Christmas 1914.

I don't suppose we will ever really know how it felt when soldiers opened the tins, but the fact many families still have them today shows how important they were.

Most gift boxes contained smoking paraphernalia. The standard box contained a pipe, one ounce of tobacco, a lighter and twenty monogrammed cigarettes, along with a Christmas card from the royal family, and a picture of Princess Mary.

Today families will have many stories of how the gift box came into their possession.

Ours survived years in a PoW camp and a long journey home.

My great grandfather was freed on Armistice Day 1918 - in fact, his birthday.

The gates of the camp were thrown open and they were told to go.

He made his way on foot through Germany and Belgium to reach a ferry port to get home.

Private Marsh walked in plimsoles and was given clothing when the King of Belgium gifted jumpers to soldiers.

The day he came home my Nana often recalled how they heard unfamiliar heavy footsteps.

My great nana Catherine opened the door and standing there was her husband. There had been no news of him coming home, he just turned up.

And when she went through the few belongings he had - there was the Princess Mary gift box.

By Christmas 1914 355,716 gifts had reached members of the British Expeditionary force, 66,168 gift boxes had reached men at home on sick leave, 4600 had gone to the French Mission, fighting alongside British soldiers in France, and 1,390 boxes had reached nursing staff in the army. This meant that more than 426,724 gift boxes had been made and distributed in just two months. Over the next four years another two million boxes would be delivered to people involved in Britain's war effort.

Princess Mary's grandson David Lascelles, Earl of Harewood, said: "My grandmother had a very strong sense of public duty, never more evident than when, aged just 17, she raised £31,000 by public appeal (the equivalent of over £3m today) to send these gift boxes to every serving soldier for the first Christmas of the war in 1914. They are still are still a poignant and very personal memento of a terrible war, carried by many hundreds of thousands of soldiers as they went into battle, many of them never to return."