Since hanging up my mortarboard and gown (I never actually had either of these, but you get my drift), I’ve been doing lots of things, as these pages will attest. One of those things is taking groups of people or individuals to France or Belgium and visiting the sites of World War 1 and 2 battlefields and sites of remembrance, be they cemeteries or memorials. This sort of thing used to be fairly niche. Vaguely disinterested school groups, obsessive military history buffs, or, occasionally, someone tracing a family tree looking for a branch that went no further. Things have changed. Massively.
In the last ten years following the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WW1, the footprint on places such as Ypres and the Somme has grown exponentially. Ypres town is a humming place that manages to combine being a delightful town centre in and of itself with a place that sees a thousand tourists a day without losing its identity. I would dare to suggest that more people visit there in one month than passed through during the whole of the Great War. And this is a good thing.
One of the key reasons I do these trips is that I passionately believe in education as a preventative measure. Society learning from the past and not repeating the mistakes. The countryside is littered with CWGC cemeteries. Tall Portland stones standing in line bearing the names (or not) of those who died in battle or as a result of battle. I’m often asked why there are fewer such cemeteries in Normandy where the D-Day landings took place. This is because the war moved as the Allies advanced. In the Somme, the frontline barely moved for six months, in Ypres for four years. This was trench warfare, with each side taking its position and defending it. Whatever hell was let loose. By 1918 Ypres town was nothing but rubble, bombarded to ruins.
I never thought we’d see trench warfare ever again given the scale of destruction and loss of life 110 years ago. Ukraine tells a different story. Putin’s malevolence has managed to undo a century of remarkable change and progress by returning Europe to the bitter harvest of entrenched warfare. I’m not a religious man at all but I pray every day for a ceasefire and a lasting peace that is secured by a united Europe in the face of tyranny.
I’ve been to Flanders twice in the last week so my listening has been mobile but I have to recommend the new My Morning Jacket album as well as a Finnish group called The Bablers that tickled my fancy with their brilliant guitar pop. They’re both in the radio show too which also features Vigilantes of Love, Wilco, Willie Watson, Larkin Poe, Adam Klein and more. As ever…
