Family holiday to WW1 Battlefields

[ToadMum]

Not the same as being there, but I found this photographic exhibition very interesting - I saw it at the Guildhall a couple of months ago. It is currently in Kent and will be returning to London later in the year:
https://news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/great- ... -conflict/
https://youtu.be/dcxITG0QEFY

[BucksBornNBred]

There are some photos in the gallery on the website. Why not ask where they go?

Thank you G55... I will ask them I guess but sometimes I feel I email too often with questions! As a teacher yourself, how annoying is it when a parent keeps asking things? I really don't like pestering teachers (though when I do they are more than polite and responsive which I appreciate).

[Guest55]

The office should know as they must organise the letters.

[BucksBornNBred]

if you can find even a distant family member's grave to visit it does make it more poignant - a couple of years ago DH and managed to track down two great uncles, both called Percy (one on each side of the family) who were killed within a few miles and a couple of months of each other in 1917. (EDITED TO ADD - I had been doing some family history research) One was buried in a tiny, immaculately kept cemetery by a rural side road south of Ypres: the other in a military section of a municipal cemetery in a suburb of a French town... Check https://www.cwgc.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; to see if there is a known grave

We also visited the Menin Gate, the Canadian monument high on Vimy Ridge, a vast German cemetery, the fascinating museum at Ypres (a lovely town, with cobbled streets, walls to walk round etc) and a couple of other sites where you could explore old trenches etc (One more carefully manicured than the other...). I think we also visited another fascinating site near Arras where tunnels were constructed to break the siege

But after too much of this the weight of history can become overwhelming even for adults with an interest so be sure to look for some other things to do. Possibly chocolate related?? We weren't travelling with children/teenagers but I'm sure others will have suggestios

My grandad lost his leg at Passchendaele so that is the connection.. My DS is obsessed with the wars (school's not helping as that is the curriculum) so I don't think he will be too overwhelmed with a visit, though I want him to see (in a gentle way) what the war really meant in terms of people - he knows the numbers that died but to see the graves might make it more real?

[BucksBornNBred]

I found Vimy Ridge quite stunning, until we visited there I hadn't appreciated quite how close the opposing trenches were to each other. Whilst the large cemeteries are hugely powerful I think was perhaps more moved by the roadside ones with just a dozen or so graves, all immaculately maintained, but just "there" on the edge of a wheatfield with no great monument or pomp and circumstance

Thank you... I will look into that one too. Do you think any grave site would be helpful just to get a feel for the losses?

[loobylou]

We went 2 years ago and we all found it an incredible time (dd then went with school and said it was better ).
We went to Ypres (the museum is superb and the last post is spine tingling). Tyne Cot was amazing due to its sheer size.
We found Beaumont Hamel really fascinating and they had great guides (Canada pays for young people to take a few months out to come to be guides).
We planned a route involving those and other "big" places like Vimy Ridge and then deliberately drove via smaller cemeteries too because they are just as amazing and in some ways more so because they're less touristy.
We visited an amazing little cemetery with a tiny museum for the Australian soldiers but unfortunately we can't remember exactly where it is...

[Guest55]

You could think about Wimereux as there are nurses as well as soldiers buried there. The graves also include that of Lt.-Col. John McCrae, author of the poem "In Flanders Fields."

https://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/ce ... -cemetery/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[BucksBornNBred]

The office should know as they must organise the letters.

Thank you .. I am so used to contacting the office and then getting a reply from a teacher that I have overlooked the fact that they can think for themselves! I will email them for some information, but I would still appreciate recommendations. Has anyone here visited the Passchendaele Museum?

[BucksBornNBred]

Thank you all so much for all your replies .. I have a lot of revision to do now based on your suggestions and I hope I can find a war cemetery near something that is less challenging and more chillaxed

[doodles]

On another holiday in the area nearly 20 years ago we went to a museum that I remember to this day in a town called Beaumont Hamel - it was the most moving museum I have ever been to, I hesitate to recommend it as it was so long ago and is probably much changed, but if you are passing through ......