Tomorrow is the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme

[JanH]

BBC article

Have really enjoyed Charles Wheeler's reports on the 10 o'clock news Janh.
My dad's uncles achieved the astonishing feat of being five Tommies (including two Old Contemptibles and one at the Battle of Wipers) who made it through WW1's trenches completely physically unscathed
Grandpa himself was in a reserved occupation and was never called up.

Any news from Rhubarb btw?

it's very sad

My grandfather fought there. He was very very young - a teenager. I get very very emotional about it.

I think the schoolchildren visiting the cemetery with the photo of their 1st XI from 1911 and finding almost all of them dead by 20 was extremely moving

Makes you believe in guardian angels, doesn't it, Marina?

My grandad was an Old Contemptible - I don't remember what else he did/was (must ask my DB, the family archivist) - was not unscathed though, had shrapnel or something.

There is a big commemoration day in Accrington for the Pals, and an exhibition at the art gallery.

Me too dino. Gt Uncle Henry had the emotional stuffing knocked totally out of him by his experiences, left him a gentle, empty shell of a soul. He lived to be 98 and half the town turned out to what we thought would be a quiet, small family funeral.

Oh the Accrington Pals
Peter Whelan's play brings that so much to life

My grandfather was certainly a very gentle soul, but very chatty and friendly, something which my mother reckons has passed down to me, my DB and my DS2.

He wouldn't ever talk about his experiences. He won some sort of cross thingy though.

Horrendous! And most of them suffered in silence afterwards. My mum's mum lost 3 brothers and 3 cousins. Something like that must leave a huge wound in families. So very very sad.

I found the Blackadder episode when they went over the top very moving and most unexpected. How any human being can convince themselves to do something as dangerous as that I can never comprehend...i'd have been a quivering wreck on the floor of the trench and been shot for desertion.

Grandad survived the war but passed away in 1966, not long before I was born.

He was with the Sherwood Foresters and the Machine Gun Corp. Lost his leg to a shrapnel wound and bad surgery in a German POW camp.

I transcribed his war diary and feel so close to him even though I never had the honour of meeting him.

Miss you Grandad

While we were on holiday in Belgium we visited the In Flanders Fields museum in Ypres. It is one of the most thought-provoking, sad yet interesting places I have ever been. The whole concept and layout of the museum is guaranteed to have anyone (except the rude English teens who practically ran through it) in tears.

I would like to visit the Somme also, my Dad's uncle was blinded and deafened in the war and my Mum's uncle had his ankles machine gunned, both surviving but the things they had to deal with, the things they saw and experienced. Truly awful.

In Ypres there is a monument called the Menin Gate , wall upon wall of names of soldiers dead but never found. Over 54,000 names, too.