Almost 400 photos taken by a World War I soldier during his tour of duty have been digitally developed after spending the last century in a sugarcane farmer's fridge.

Peter and Daphne Fuller from Proserpine in North Queensland say they always knew about the photos tucked away in a chocolate box in the fridge passed down from Peter's grandfather, William Johnstone, but had never looked at them.

"Peter's mother had them stored away because her Dad told her that the subject of the photos was a bit sensitive and she shouldn't tell anybody... photos of planes and ships and troops and things like that," said Daphne.

"Peter's dad was a photographer and they had a special fridge that they kept the slides in so they wouldn't go mouldy."

Captured on camera

September 17, 2014 marks 100 years since Johnstone and five other men from Proserpine enlisted to go to war.

It was the WWI centenary anniversary that prompted Daphne to take the photos out of the fridge and into the Proserpine Historical Museum where volunteer Lyn Burke received them eagerly.

"I bought a cake, did a dance... I was very excited," said Lyn.

"As soon as you looked at the first ones I knew we needed to digitise them. Here are men on horseback in the desert, here they are setting their camps up, their camels, their aeroplanes on reconnaissance, big ships, etc."

Daphne said she was surprised to learn what Johnstone had photographed.

"I thought this was a nice picture of a picnic or something with a lot of soft drink bottles buried in the sand to be kept cool, but Lloyd from the museum told me they were making bombs," she said.

"I actually phoned the Australian War Memorial to see if they wanted them and they said, 'oh we're not interested in tourist photos.' At that stage I didn't know what they were."

A ringer off to war

Johnstone was a 31-year-old horse ringer when he enlisted to join the war effort.

For six weeks he underwent training in Proserpine with the five other local recruits before shipping out of Bowen for Sydney.

After more training in Egypt, his section was sent to Gallipoli in May 1915 as replacement machine gunners.

Peter said his grandfather never had any difficulty talking about his experiences.

"You hear that they won't talk about being at war but he was keen to talk about it. He told me, 'I was on the second half when they were evacuating Gallipoli, the half they didn't expect to get off.' That's the sort of bloke he was," said Peter.

After serving time more time in Egypt and then Palestine Johnstone was diagnosed with gastritis and was sent home to Proserpine.

"That's where he met his wife to be, she was a nurse in the Proserpine hospital and she looked after him," said Daphne.

Celebrating the centenary

To mark the war centenary and the retrieval of the photos, the Proserpine Historical Museum is holding an exhibition of Johnstone's photos on Wednesday September 17.

Lyn says while copies of the photos will be sent to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra for their archives, the originals will stay in Proserpine.

"We've just got to work out how to keep them safe and alive for another 100 years," said Lyn.

"They lasted 97 odd years now... so why not put them back in the fridge?"

The exhibition starts at 5:45pm and is open to the public with a gold coin donation.