The National Memorial Arboretum is a year-round centre of remembrance and needs to be revisited. Not only should a first visit be mandatory, but also it is one of those places that gives more each time you go. It changes with the seasons of course, but also as trees mature and new memorials are added. […]
National Memorial Arboretum revisited Read More »
There is an exceptional little museum in the unassuming village of Eastriggs, in Scotland’s Dumfries and Galloway. The Devil’s Porridge Museum tells an unusual tale, of ‘the greatest factory on earth’, what it produced and the people that worked in it. It is a reminder of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The factory was called
The Devil’s Porridge Read More »
This is HMS M.33, a relic of another time – yet a time of not so very long ago – and of almost-forgotten battles. M.33 was a monitor, essentially a floating gun platform. Designed to operate in shallow waters, close to shore, she was one of almost 40 monitors ordered to be built at the
For four years, the armies had slugged it out. Millions had died and most people had forgotten what started it all in the first place, or what they were actually fighting for. It took much, much longer to conclude the peace than it did to begin the war; maybe, t’was ever thus. The United States
At 10pm BST on 4th August 2014, the villagers of Burton in Lonsdale, a small community of fewer than 600 souls in North Yorkshire, on the borders with Lancashire and Cumbria, gathered on the village green by the old war memorial. At 10.15, there was a short service. Then, the people walked around the old
Captain James Bigglesworth, known as Biggles, absent-mindedly tapped a fresh cigarette on the back of his hand and anxiously eyed the grey eastern sky. Algy – the Honourable Algernon Montgomery Lacey – was long overdue from patrol over the lines and his fuel would be getting low. Just then, the melodic hum of a Bentley
RAF100 – calling Biggles Read More »
Orford Ness, a ten-mile long shingle spit on the Suffolk coast, is one of the most extraordinary places in Britain. Its environment, part natural, part man-made, provides a perfect, and in places rare, habitat for an enormous variety of flora and fauna. But, more than that, for the greater part of the 20th century it
What really happened at Orford Ness? Read More »
The Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm Museum is situated, with startling logic, twenty miles or more from the sea. It is a massive place and, if you haven’t already guessed, it tells the story of the Royal Navy in the air: oh, come on – you know what I mean… The museum opened in 1964
A visit to the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm Museum Read More »
The Belgian town of Ypres, now more generally and correctly known by its Flemish name, Ieper, is very close to Britain. Geographically, it is only about an hour and a half away – through the Channel Tunnel from Folkestone to Calais, head north to Dunkirk, hang a right and you’re there. Spiritually, it’s even closer.
The Ypres Salient, 1914-1918 Read More »
In the dying moments of 1914 and the opening days of 1915, remarkable stories began to circulate in Britain’s newspapers. The stories came from France and Belgium, where great armies were locked in mighty conflict, and told of a truce between British and German soldiers. At this time of peace and goodwill, it was said
The Christmas Truce of 1914 Read More »
In 1918, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns on the Western Front fell silent. Just imagine. For the first time in more than four years, in this part of Europe, men stopped killing one another. Fighting had officially continued throughout that morning, however. Some, like American General
Amazing; moving; humbling; impressive: words you could choose to describe the annual National Service of Remembrance held in London on Remembrance Sunday, the second Sunday in November. Thousands attend every year; thousands watch it on TV; thousands more attend similar, albeit slightly more modest, services throughout the United Kingdom – and beyond. It is an
National Service of Remembrance Read More »
In 1942, someone at the War Office decided they needed a prisoner of war camp just outside Malton, in North Yorkshire. (“I say, Carruthers, we really could do with a nice new prison camp. Any ideas?” “I know just the place, sir…”). It is now a museum, almost exclusively dedicated to the Second World War.
The Cross of Sacrifice instantly identifies a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery. Beautifully tended, as they all are, the information panel tells you that this one contains 383 burials from the First World War, 97 Commonwealth – mainly New Zealanders – and 286 Germans. There are also three burials from the Second World War. Shortly after
Cannock Chase War Cemetery Read More »
