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…
I think that Notre Dame De Lorrette was a great place to start the trip as it was a big shock to us all. It really made us think. I really think though that it wasnt until we actually thought of each grave as person rather than each grave as a gravestone that we really began to understand the numbers involved.
I agree with Elisa. The weather helped alot at Notre Dame de Lorrette aswell because of the mist you couldn’t actually see where the crosses ended, it really seemed like they went on forever, and that made a massive impact.
I was trying to think of a word that would describe the trip, but you know what i really couldn’t. The best i got was, an emotional roller-coaster, filled with tears,laughs,music and bus journeys, a big shock to the system and some quite profound moments, also one of the best museums i’ve ever visited. We learned so much not just about “how many deaths” but also a lot of history, like the Irish battalion that actually fulfilled their purpose in the Somme but because they had no back-up couldn’t hold onto their position. It was a really great experience and, however cheesy it may sound, I honestly wouldn’t have missed it for the world. For me, one of the highlights would definitely be the day we went to Ypres and visited the Flanders Fields Museum and took part in the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate, we also had our ceilidh in the streets that day, that was a wonderful experience. All i can now say is thanks Mr W!
My pleasure! I too have many great memories of the trip…
Please feel free to get others to post here… I’ll be putting up my travelogue of the rest of the trip very soon…
“..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.”
Too true. That was the first thing I thought when I got off the bus. And you’re right, the weather added was appropriate. You looked in any direction and there were masses of crosses and they seemed to never end. That hit me hard, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that sight. Also, being the first place we visited, it was a real shock, and it hit home just how emotional the trip was likely to be. And it was!
[...] easily into the study of the Great War in a History department. I re-discovered on my trip to the Battlefields earlier this year that our pupils may learn the numbers, but it is up to the teachers to put human [...]