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BATTLEFIELD TOUR
In 2009 forty villagers travelled to Belgium to honour the memory of some of the villagers who died in the First World War.
(click on pictures to get full size)
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Essex Farm cemetery where John McCrae wrote the poem ‘In Flanders Field’ which inextricably linked the poppy to the battlefields and remembrance and where Edwin Daniels is buried. Edwin, one of four brothers from Alkham, was killed by a shell on 8th June 1916. |
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 Charles W King |
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People gathering in the Essex Farm cemetery |
James Tapsell laying a poppy spray at the tombstone of Edwin Daniels |
Grave of Edwin Daniels |
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German cemetery at Langermarck |
Sanctuary Wood |
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Statues of German soldiers |
 The graves |
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The German cemetery was stark in comparison with the beautifully maintained commonwealth cemeteries |
Part of the existing trenches. This is a commercial site and the museum can only be described as unusual
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Tyne Cot is the biggest Commonwealth military cemetery in the world where there are graves and names of 35000 ‘missing’ soldiers. |
The Canadian Memorial stands in Saint Julien Wood near Langemarck The photo on the left was taken in 2009. The one on the right was taken in 1934 by the mother of one of the 2009 group who was on a cycling holiday.
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Some of the grave-stones at Tyne Cot. |
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| Menin Gate, which is an enormous arched entrance to Ypres where the Last Post is sounded every evening at 8.00pm. Soldiers marched through the gate on the way to the front and the names of 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers who died without graves are inscribed on it. | |||
 The Menin Gate James Tapsell, Grace Waiting to lay the Stacey and the Last wreath Post buglers
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 Laying the wreath
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The Picnic |
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