Battlefield Tour

It was half-term last week and, as always, you have to at least nod in the direction that the kids are on holiday from school and do something.    A couple of years ago we went round the Somme and Ypres battlefields en famile. That was a surprising successful trip.  We went by coach on a tour run by Leger’s, which is, unless you have a very particular aim in view, is a terrific way to get to know the lie of the land.  Our guide, Peter Williams, was absolutely ace and a mine of information about the war, and, of course, it’s nice to have other people to talk to.  Most visitors were there to see a particular relative’s grave.  The graveyards are very dignified and peaceful and – as you’d hope – beautifully maintained.

There was a great national debate after the war about what the graveyards should look like.  For the British, with their national obsession with gardening, the idea was to create the atmosphere of a garden and, even in a chilly February, it works.  The stones are all white and uniform in design.  For those soldiers who are unidentified, there’s an inscription written by Rudyard Kipling:  “A soldier of the Great War, known unto God.”

Heaven knows what it cost Kipling to write that simple message;  he loved his children.  Somewhere or other I’ve got one of his short stories where his little girl, who’d died, touches his hand as he sits remembering her.  Okay, that sounds dead creepy, but it’s actually really touching.  John, or as he was always known, Jack Kipling, was desperate to get into the war, but his eyesight was poor and he needed glasses.  Rudyard pulled every string he could to get Jack into the army and, of course, it ended not only tragically but quickly.  In his excellent book, Mud, Blood and Poppycock, Major Gordon Corrigan talks about the danger of letting a man who’s sight depends on spectacles onto a battlefield.  One bump, one knock, and his sight’s gone and his liability to himself and to his comrades.  Poor Jack Kipling lasted about two days before he, too, became a “Soldier of the Great War, known Unto God.”

Kipling and his wife spent years looking for any trace of Jack.  They never did find any, but later he wrote the line; “If any ask you why we died, tell them that our fathers lied.”

The German graveyard we visited was especially poignant because, in one of those terrible ironies, it’s only really the British who go. Peter Williams, the aforesaid guide, told us that in five years of running the trips, he’d only once met a party of Germans there.  The First World War, as I understand from my German friend, (Professor) Beatrice Heuser, is virtually forgotten in modern Germany, and, of course, thee was so much disruption in the Second World War, that families were scattered and lost.  There were lots of Jewish graves in the German graveyard; it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what happened to there descendants.  The atmosphere was peaceful but very different from the British graveyards.  Trees have a huge place in the German psyche and the idea they wanted to conjure up wasn’t so much a garden but a woodland glade.

I’d recommend anyone with the slightest interest in the First World War to make the trip; being there is different.

It was half-term last week and, as always, you have to at least nod in the direction that the kids are on holiday from school and do something.    A couple of years ago we went round the Somme and Ypres battlefields en famile. That was a surprising successful trip.  We went by coach on a tour run by Leger’s, which is, unless you have a very particular aim in view, is a terrific way to get to know the lie of the land.  Our guide, Peter Williams, was absolutely ace and a mine of information about the war, and, of course, it’s nice to have other people to talk to.  Most visitors were there to see a particular relative’s grave.  The graveyards are very dignified and peaceful and – as you’d hope – beautifully maintained.

There was a great national debate after the war about what the graveyards should look like.  For the British, with their national obsession with gardening, the idea was to create the atmosphere of a garden and, even in a chilly February, it works.  The stones are all white and uniform in design.  For those soldiers who are unidentified, there’s an inscription written by Rudyard Kipling:  “A soldier of the Great War, known unto God.”

Heaven knows what it cost Kipling to write that simple message;  he loved his children.  Somewhere or other I’ve got one of his short stories where his little girl, who’d died, touches his hand as he sits remembering her.  Okay, that sounds dead creepy, but it’s actually really touching.  John, or as he was always known, Jack Kipling, was desperate to get into the war, but his eyesight was poor and he needed glasses.  Rudyard pulled every string he could to get Jack into the army and, of course, it ended not only tragically but quickly.  In his excellent book, Mud, Blood and Poppycock, Major Gordon Corrigan talks about the danger of letting a man who’s sight depends on spectacles onto a battlefield.  One bump, one knock, and his sight’s gone and his liability to himself and to his comrades.  Poor Jack Kipling lasted about two days before he, too, became a “Soldier of the Great War, known Unto God.”

Kipling and his wife spent years looking for any trace of Jack.  They never did find any, but later he wrote the line; “If any ask you why we died, tell them that our fathers lied.”

The German graveyard we visited was especially poignant because, in one of those terrible ironies, it’s only really the British who go. Peter Williams, the aforesaid guide, told us that in five years of running the trips, he’d only once met a party of Germans there.  The First World War, as I understand from my German friend, (Professor) Beatrice Heuser, is virtually forgotten in modern Germany, and, of course, thee was so much disruption in the Second World War, that families were scattered and lost.  There were lots of Jewish graves in the German graveyard; it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what happened to there descendants.  The atmosphere was peaceful but very different from the British graveyards.  Trees have a huge place in the German psyche and the idea they wanted to conjure up wasn’t so much a garden but a woodland glade.

I’d recommend anyone with the slightest interest in the First World War to make the trip; being there is different.

It was half-term last week and, as always, you have to at least nod in the direction that the kids are on holiday from school and do something.    A couple of years ago we went round the Somme and Ypres battlefields en famile. That was a surprising successful trip.  We went by coach on a tour run by Leger’s, which is, unless you have a very particular aim in view, is a terrific way to get to know the lie of the land.  Our guide, Peter Williams, was absolutely ace and a mine of information about the war, and, of course, it’s nice to have other people to talk to.  Most visitors were there to see a particular relative’s grave.  The graveyards are very dignified and peaceful and – as you’d hope – beautifully maintained.

There was a great national debate after the war about what the graveyards should look like.  For the British, with their national obsession with gardening, the idea was to create the atmosphere of a garden and, even in a chilly February, it works.  The stones are all white and uniform in design.  For those soldiers who are unidentified, there’s an inscription written by Rudyard Kipling:  “A soldier of the Great War, known unto God.”

Heaven knows what it cost Kipling to write that simple message;  he loved his children.  Somewhere or other I’ve got one of his short stories where his little girl, who’d died, touches his hand as he sits remembering her.  Okay, that sounds dead creepy, but it’s actually really touching.  John, or as he was always known, Jack Kipling, was desperate to get into the war, but his eyesight was poor and he needed glasses.  Rudyard pulled every string he could to get Jack into the army and, of course, it ended not only tragically but quickly.  In his excellent book, Mud, Blood and Poppycock, Major Gordon Corrigan talks about the danger of letting a man who’s sight depends on spectacles onto a battlefield.  One bump, one knock, and his sight’s gone and his liability to himself and to his comrades.  Poor Jack Kipling lasted about two days before he, too, became a “Soldier of the Great War, known Unto God.”

Kipling and his wife spent years looking for any trace of Jack.  They never did find any, but later he wrote the line; “If any ask you why we died, tell them that our fathers lied.”

The German graveyard we visited was especially poignant because, in one of those terrible ironies, it’s only really the British who go. Peter Williams, the aforesaid guide, told us that in five years of running the trips, he’d only once met a party of Germans there.  The First World War, as I understand from my German friend, (Professor) Beatrice Heuser, is virtually forgotten in modern Germany, and, of course, thee was so much disruption in the Second World War, that families were scattered and lost.  There were lots of Jewish graves in the German graveyard; it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what happened to there descendants.  The atmosphere was peaceful but very different from the British graveyards.  Trees have a huge place in the German psyche and the idea they wanted to conjure up wasn’t so much a garden but a woodland glade.

I’d recommend anyone with the slightest interest in the First World War to make the trip; being there is different.