| Antiques roadshow WW1 20:08 - Nov 14 with 1265 views | gtsb1966 |
Anyone done the tour. I did it in 2016. The Menin Gate was the most humbling experience ever. Ypres really is a beautiful city. |  | | |  |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:12 - Nov 14 with 1250 views | Romeo4 |
Not made it there yet. It’s on the bucket list.
Did you do an email organised tour or make your own way? [Post edited 14 Nov 2021 20:13]
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| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:12 - Nov 14 with 1252 views | factual_blue |
The section in the novel Birdsong about the contemporary protagonist visiting the Menin Gate (a descendant of one of those in the WW1 part of the book) is truly moving. In particular when she grasps that the memorial is just to those with no known grave from just one battle. [Post edited 14 Nov 2021 20:12]
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| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:12 - Nov 14 with 1246 views | gtsb1966 |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:12 - Nov 14 by Romeo4 |
Not made it there yet. It’s on the bucket list.
Did you do an email organised tour or make your own way? [Post edited 14 Nov 2021 20:13]
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Do it. Massive eye opener | | | |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:15 - Nov 14 with 1225 views | gtsb1966 |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:12 - Nov 14 by factual_blue |
The section in the novel Birdsong about the contemporary protagonist visiting the Menin Gate (a descendant of one of those in the WW1 part of the book) is truly moving. In particular when she grasps that the memorial is just to those with no known grave from just one battle. [Post edited 14 Nov 2021 20:12]
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They sang birdsong that evening I was there. The echo in the Menin Gate made me cry. | | | |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:18 - Nov 14 with 1209 views | gtsb1966 |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:12 - Nov 14 by Romeo4 |
Not made it there yet. It’s on the bucket list.
Did you do an email organised tour or make your own way? [Post edited 14 Nov 2021 20:13]
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I did it with Leger. They were brilliant and very informative. | | | |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:26 - Nov 14 with 1191 views | Ftnfwest |
Keep meaning to go, great grandfathers name on it, no grave. |  | | |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:42 - Nov 14 with 1150 views | StochesStotasBlewe |
It's been on my "must visit" list for several years. Really must get round to doing it.
Some of the original footage on the programme is incredible. |  |
| We have no village green, or a shop.
It's very, very quiet.
I can walk to the pub. |
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| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:51 - Nov 14 with 1123 views | gtsb1966 |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 20:42 - Nov 14 by StochesStotasBlewe |
It's been on my "must visit" list for several years. Really must get round to doing it.
Some of the original footage on the programme is incredible. |
Do it. Absolutely humbling bit such a beautiful city to eat out etc | | | |
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| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 22:35 - Nov 14 with 1071 views | Deano69 |
I did it on a school trip 35 years or so ago. Even as a daft teenager I thought it was wholly touching and thought provoking. The ‘statistics’ are mind blowing and hearing kids at the age I was were lying about their age to fight was jaw dropping. |  |
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| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 04:22 - Nov 15 with 1018 views | Churchman |
No, I’ve not done the tour, but it’s on my to do list. I have been to Ypres, Tyne Cot / Passchendaele area and that was very sobering (understatement).
I want to do the Somme area, not least because I happen to know within about 100 yards where my grandfather was on 1st July 1916 (Field Company record).
WW1 is such a hard one to get the head round, not least because of the scale of it, but I find it ever more fascinating the more I read about it. The generation that went through that were amazing. |  | | |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 08:17 - Nov 15 with 963 views | Steve_M |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 22:35 - Nov 14 by Deano69 |
I did it on a school trip 35 years or so ago. Even as a daft teenager I thought it was wholly touching and thought provoking. The ‘statistics’ are mind blowing and hearing kids at the age I was were lying about their age to fight was jaw dropping. |
Yes, that whole area had a similar effect when we went at Sixth Form and that was in 1994. Although the Menin Gate was a little bit too ceremonial to have the raw impact that Tyne Cot cemetery did - again as with Factual's comment earlier the graves just those where there were big enough pieces of body to bury - and the trenches at Beaumont Hamel and thinking just how exposed it would have been walking towards the German lines to the deep bunkers beyond.
That week was also memorable for Ipswich beating Leeds, although my jaded response to being told that by a friend was "You'll be telling me WIlliams scored next.... and Sedgley". Oh... |  |
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| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 09:06 - Nov 15 with 934 views | Guthrum |
Not as a tour, but I've visited a number of First World War battlefields.
Actually found Verdun the most chilling (despite it being a sunny morning when I was there). Places like the top of Mort Homme hill, where ten thousand men died in an area about the size of four football pitches and the villages which were so smashed and poisoned with gas they were never rebuilt.
The Aisne was perhaps the most depressing, in the sense that as a position to attack (and the way the French went about it) was the most obviously hopeless.
Have also been to Ypres, where my grandfather fought. They did a remarkable job of rebuilding the city after the war. |  |
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| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 10:54 - Nov 15 with 890 views | Churchman |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 08:17 - Nov 15 by Steve_M |
Yes, that whole area had a similar effect when we went at Sixth Form and that was in 1994. Although the Menin Gate was a little bit too ceremonial to have the raw impact that Tyne Cot cemetery did - again as with Factual's comment earlier the graves just those where there were big enough pieces of body to bury - and the trenches at Beaumont Hamel and thinking just how exposed it would have been walking towards the German lines to the deep bunkers beyond.
That week was also memorable for Ipswich beating Leeds, although my jaded response to being told that by a friend was "You'll be telling me WIlliams scored next.... and Sedgley". Oh... |
You are right. The cemeteries, both big and small, did carry enormous impact. All ages, different regiments, people from all over. Very moving and sad. One odd fact - of the many reasons why so many soldiers could not be identified was because their dog tags were bio degradable.
The lie of the land at Ypres is so ridiculously flat it’s hardly surprising so many men died or were injured there in what was a truly industrial war.
The work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is brilliant and the story of Remembrance itself as we know it is fascinating. | | | |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 11:01 - Nov 15 with 887 views | factual_blue |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 09:06 - Nov 15 by Guthrum |
Not as a tour, but I've visited a number of First World War battlefields.
Actually found Verdun the most chilling (despite it being a sunny morning when I was there). Places like the top of Mort Homme hill, where ten thousand men died in an area about the size of four football pitches and the villages which were so smashed and poisoned with gas they were never rebuilt.
The Aisne was perhaps the most depressing, in the sense that as a position to attack (and the way the French went about it) was the most obviously hopeless.
Have also been to Ypres, where my grandfather fought. They did a remarkable job of rebuilding the city after the war. |
If I remember correctly, the impact of Verdun on French life was colossal. The UK has something like fifty 'Thankful Parishes', where all those who served in WW1 returned.
France has one. | |
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| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 11:04 - Nov 15 with 879 views | factual_blue |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 10:54 - Nov 15 by Churchman |
You are right. The cemeteries, both big and small, did carry enormous impact. All ages, different regiments, people from all over. Very moving and sad. One odd fact - of the many reasons why so many soldiers could not be identified was because their dog tags were bio degradable.
The lie of the land at Ypres is so ridiculously flat it’s hardly surprising so many men died or were injured there in what was a truly industrial war.
The work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is brilliant and the story of Remembrance itself as we know it is fascinating. |
Even more couldn't be identified because they were blown to pieces by artillery fire. | |
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| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 11:23 - Nov 15 with 866 views | Churchman |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 11:04 - Nov 15 by factual_blue |
Even more couldn't be identified because they were blown to pieces by artillery fire. |
You are quite correct. The majority were blown or shot to pieces, buried by shell fire, cave ins, you name it.
Another odd one is that where lads had been miners, certain other occupations, they often wore their army ID tags in the ‘normal’ place for them at the waist. After a major action like the battle of the Somme lasting weeks and months, when bodies were finally recovered the lads doing the work sometimes in their haste looked in the wrong place. | | | |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 14:01 - Nov 15 with 810 views | EdwardStone |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 11:01 - Nov 15 by factual_blue |
If I remember correctly, the impact of Verdun on French life was colossal. The UK has something like fifty 'Thankful Parishes', where all those who served in WW1 returned.
France has one. |
It is truly sobering to stand by the memorial in a French village and count the number of names
20 in the tiny village where my parents lived, almost all from 4 families |  | | |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 14:05 - Nov 15 with 796 views | EdwardStone |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 10:54 - Nov 15 by Churchman |
You are right. The cemeteries, both big and small, did carry enormous impact. All ages, different regiments, people from all over. Very moving and sad. One odd fact - of the many reasons why so many soldiers could not be identified was because their dog tags were bio degradable.
The lie of the land at Ypres is so ridiculously flat it’s hardly surprising so many men died or were injured there in what was a truly industrial war.
The work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is brilliant and the story of Remembrance itself as we know it is fascinating. |
The re-burying of the dead in 1919 onwards must have been a horrendous job
I know the troops doing the recovery went to extraordinary lengths to find as many as they could, but exhuming semi-composted corpses is surely the stuff of nightmares | | | |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 15:16 - Nov 15 with 756 views | Churchman |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 14:05 - Nov 15 by EdwardStone |
The re-burying of the dead in 1919 onwards must have been a horrendous job
I know the troops doing the recovery went to extraordinary lengths to find as many as they could, but exhuming semi-composted corpses is surely the stuff of nightmares |
Absolutely. A total nightmare. Rats nests in rib cages, you name it. Hats off to all those people.
One of many reasons they went to such extraordinary lengths was the traditions and rituals around death and funeral at that time. There had to be the body of your loved one to bury. Many people sought their loved one’s remains for years after the war, despite them having literally disappeared. The creation of Remembrance, the interment of the unknown soldier, war memorials not being enough for some.
It’s interesting that at the time, the government were hostile to remembrance as we know it. They wanted the war forgotten. They were basically forced to do something and what was done was meant to be a one off. The original Lutyens Cenotaph was made of wood and plaster and actually made for a parade. It was replaced with the permanent one due to public pressure with the Portland stone in 1920. | | | |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 15:20 - Nov 15 with 752 views | EdwardStone |
| Antiques roadshow WW1 on 15:16 - Nov 15 by Churchman |
Absolutely. A total nightmare. Rats nests in rib cages, you name it. Hats off to all those people.
One of many reasons they went to such extraordinary lengths was the traditions and rituals around death and funeral at that time. There had to be the body of your loved one to bury. Many people sought their loved one’s remains for years after the war, despite them having literally disappeared. The creation of Remembrance, the interment of the unknown soldier, war memorials not being enough for some.
It’s interesting that at the time, the government were hostile to remembrance as we know it. They wanted the war forgotten. They were basically forced to do something and what was done was meant to be a one off. The original Lutyens Cenotaph was made of wood and plaster and actually made for a parade. It was replaced with the permanent one due to public pressure with the Portland stone in 1920. |
Partly why I have always struggled with the Girl's name Mia....and I have met some lovely Mias along the way.
And I've never had time for the Korean car manufacturer Kia
Bad enuff to have KIA scrawled against your name in the Regimental records....but at least there is some tangible meat to show that you once existed.
Far worse to have MIA against your name...... | | | |
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