A sombre day today, sunny and warm but as we walked on Flanders Fields a shiver went up the spine.
We started at the new cemetery at Fromelles, opened in July this year - brave men who lying in mass graves were finally unearthed and given the dignity due to them at last.......
The youngest there, C. Morgan at 16 years perhaps a mere child "ardent for some desperate glory"
Then we came to Bedford House Cemetery adopting the nickname given to a local stately home by the tommies. It is one of the most beautiful resting places on the Ypres salient. There are 5000 men lying here!
Then there's Tyne Cot overlooking the very fields at Passchendaele where thousands perished.........
A German pillbox where machine guns spat out their deadly fire
row after row after row...... 12,000 are here, the wall at the rear commemorates 35,000 others who lie where only God knows......... On the Menin Gate at Ypres there are another 54,000 names
Seeing this you can't help but think of Owen's words...........
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children, ardent for some desperate glory
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mor