ClosR Widget

This is an experiment to try out closr.it

Flanders Files

This is the cover for the CD of the Soundtrack of In Flanders Fields museum. If you ever get the chance you are highly recommended to visit it!

Check It Out!!!!

Found a cool new toy/website… Video with comments here: http://www.viddler.com/explore/nwinton/videos/1/

Feel free to sign up and add your own!

A Wee DVD Taster…

You should get your DVD in the next couple of days… sorry about the delays! In the meantine… here’s a wee taster:

Just A Quickie…

The DVD is nearing completion so this is a last call for you to submit pictures for us to include on it. I’ll arrange a viewing and question and answer session in a couple of weeks so that you can see what you got up to… You’ll also get your own copy to keep once we’ve sorted out getting the finished article copied!

In the meantime, here’s a wee taster of some of the goodies I’ve got lined up for you… click on the picture (or THIS LINK) to see a scrollable picture/QuickTimeVR of Dud Corner Cemetery… (You’ll need QuickTime to view it… available HERE as a free download from Apple.com)

Photo Slideshow…

| View Show | Create Your Own

Aftermath – Day 2

Day 2 – Notre Dame de Lorette – Vimy Ridge – Dud Corner Cemetery – Château d’Ebblinghem

Arriving in France gave everyone’s spirits a much needed boost, and we quickly took the opportunity to stop at a French Service Station (Bonjour). Within minutes, we had pupils trying to use their French while the service station staff tried to use their English… Added excitement came with the realisation that there were new flavours of crisps to try… (Bolognaise Crisps anyone?)…

The other thing that became very apparent when we stopped was that the weather wasn’t as good as we might have hoped for. It was ‘guy dreich’ as they say in Scotland… ie: damp, with drizzle, and a bitterly cold wind, and quite misty… We really felt at home!

After the stop it was back on the bus and on to Notre Dame de Lorette (NDL) – France’s National Cemetery in the North. There is a bigger one at Verdun, but that is a destination for another trip.

Notre Dame de Lorette is dominated by the Phare (lighthouse), and as we drove up to the site, I reminded the pupils of the old idea of lighting a candle and placing it in a window to help guide the souls of the departed home. The Phare at NDL serves a similar purpose, and there is also the notion that it is searching the battlefields for those who still lie buried there. All in all, it is a very powerful symbol of loss.

As we drew up beside NDL it became very apparent that the pupils were beginning to realise the true nature of the trip. The bus became very quiet as the full enormity of the headstones became apparent.

Notre Dame de Lorette contains somewhere in the region of 40,000 burials, or roughly the population of Perth. Of these, approximately 20,000 have individual headstones and the remainder are buried in communal graves, or ossuaries.

We climbed out of the bus, and I asked the pupils to assemble on the viewing platform at the side of the road. Here, on a clear day, it is possible to look over to Arras and Vimy Ridge, but on this day the mist meant very poor visibility indeed. After a quick reminder about appropriate respect – the last I had to give on the trip – we entered the cemetery.

The French cemeteries are designed to emphasis the scale of the losses suffered by France, and in this respect, they succeed magnificently. As many of the pupils remarked, it is one thing to be told in a History lesson that 5 or 10 or 20 thousand soldiers in a battle – it is quite another to be confronted by 20,000 crosses and realise that each one of these represents a person who lived and had a family waiting for them.

The weather, dismal as it was, was completely appropriate. To stand in the mist that morning and see crosses heading off into the gloom heightened the already powerful sensation of loss created by Notre Dame de Lorette’s design.

As we walked through the cemetery, I was overwhelmed by the quality and variety of the questions that the pupils were asking. There was a genuine desire to learn here and I was struck by the fact that these are the self-same pupils that people at home, and in the media, are so quick to dismiss because of their youth.

One thing that had a profound impact on many of the group was the unknown soldiers who lie in the base of the Phare. There is an unknown French soldier from every conflict that France participated in from the Great War to the end of the 20th Century. They are laid in rows of four coffins, and stacked one on another. As one looks down into the crypt in which they lie, there is an immense sense of continuity and loss as the realisation that the Great War – the war to end all wars – failed to prevent further loss of life. This was a theme that came back to us time and time again on the trip.

We boarded the bus and made our way to Vimy Ridge.

Vimy is a name that still resonates after all these years. For the Germans it was a vital stronghold on the Western Front as whoever held it had effective control of the coal fields in the nearby city of Lens. For much of the war, the Allies tried time and time again to take the ridge, but it didn’t fall until Easter 1917. The Canadians who finally took the ridge did so at a terrible price, and this was recognised by the French gifting of the site to Canada.

From our point of view, it gave us a chance to see some trenches and to get an idea of just how close the opposing forces could be at points. Some of the trenches of Vimy have been preserved in concrete, and before long, we had pupils eagerly scrambling amongst them… and again, they had lots of questions.

Plenty of photographs were taken, and lots of scrambling in and out of the trenches (even if I did get a row for going onto a bit that is now closed to the public… well, it wasn’t the last time I was here!)

Vimy also has a visitors centre at the foot of the ridge that the Canadians climbed when they finally defeated the German defence. It is an interesting centre, but if we are honest, it was probably very popular that day because it was warm and dry!

After a brief visit, it was outside for a group photo-call and then onto the bus to make for the Château… with one quick and poignant detour.

We took the opportunity to stop briefly at Dud Corner Cemetery to allow Katie to pay her respects to one of her relations who is remembered on the memorial to the missing. There is a real sense of timeline and continuity and connection when the name on the wall is someone you are (however distantly) related to.

After this, we headed to our home from home: Château d’Ebblinghem.

I like the Château! As I said to the parents, it is secure, it is comfortable, and the staff is all geared to making sure that our stay is as perfect as possible. On every count, they succeed. After time to settle in, we had a quick fire-drill, and then our evening meal. I tried (unsuccessfully) to upload some photos and words to the blog, and then let the pupils see some of the photos from trip so far… and very quickly became aware that most of them were wilting fast. We had set the bedtime for the trip as 11pm, but by 10:30 I asked the pupils if they wanted to go to bed and most of them couldn’t get to their rooms fast enough…

We weren’t far behind, and so Day 2 drew to a peaceful conclusion. Tomorrow would be busy, with an appointment with Hunter’s Cemetery waiting at the end of the day…

Aftermath – Day 1

Day One Perth -> Folkstone (Tunnel)

Amazingly, we set off on time! For the pupils (and also the rest of the staff) it was a journey into the unknown. Everyone knew where we were going, but no-one really knew what they would see or how they would react. For me as the organiser, and having been before, I was looking at the itinerary from the point of view of where the emotional highs and lows would come… but mostly, I was just glad to be on my way. It does take a lot of planning and preparation to make sure the trip goes smoothly, but all the planning in the world cannot prepare you for every eventuality.

The bus trip was wonderfully uneventful (except for Mrs Stark asking if we needed a video on…), and I was impressed by the pupils’ good humour… we had a couple of stops on the way and successfully managed to get everyone off the bus (and on again) as necessary. We made really good time thanks to clear roads and before long we arrived in Luton and were saying goodbye to Ray (our link driver) and welcoming Garry who would be driving us for the main part of the trip.

Clear roads meant we arrived at the Tunnel Terminal with 3 hours to spare, and this caused the only snag of the whole trip. Every other time I have travelled on this trip we have been able to get an earlier crossing… but not this time! This meant an enforced wait in the Tunnel Terminal, though it did give some of the boys the chance to get a ball out and get very muddy before we’d even crossed to France (and my very real apologies to the parents who have to try and get the ground in mud out of jeans)!

There weren’t too many people on the trip who’d been on the Tunnel Crossing before, so that added to the sense of adventure… and also lots of photos of the troupe standing behind the bus! 40 minutes later, the watches were changed to French time and Day 2 had officially started…

Comments Enabled!

I’ve enabled comments without the need to log in! I should have thought to do this earlier, but only noticed when there weren’t too many comments appearing! You can now give your own thoughts on any of the posts…

I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.

Flickr Map Added

I’ve started placing the uploaded photos on a flickr map so you can see where we were.

Just click on the numbers on the map to see the photos from that area.

More to come!