Colmworth & Neighbours History Society
COLMWORTH & NEIGHBOURS’ HISTORY SOCIETY
YPRES BATTLEFIELDS TOUR 31 May – 3 June 2011
The Ypres ‘Experience’
Coach Company:Galloway Coach Travel Ltd., Denters Hill, Mendlesham, Stowmarket, Suffolk, 1P14 5RR (Tel: 01449 766323). Tour Manager Glenn Foreman.
Guide:Roger Willson
Group Leaders: Stephen & Jan Smith. 38 Passengers aged between 16 and 81.
Coach Driver:Mark.
31 May:Left from Colmworth, and departed Calais Port for starting our afternoon exploration of the famous Ypres Salient, concentrating on the fighting of 1914 and 1915. Visiting HELL FIRE CORNER, MENIN ROAD and HOOGE, the anvil of the battlefield; GELUVELD, touch-and-go when the German Army attacked there in the autumn of 1914; the first gas attack of 1915 including the Canadian defence at VANCOUVER CROSS ROADS and the German Cemetery at LANGEMARCK; ESSEX FARM CEMETERY where the poem ‘ In Flanders Fields the Poppies Blow’ was written.
Arrived early evening at the 4* ARIANE HOTEL in centre of Ypres for check in. Relaxing dinner in the hotel.
01 June:All day on the battlefields, mainly concentrating on 1917, the battles of the MESSINES RIDGE and THIRD YPRES, PASSCHENDAELE. We spent the morning in the quiet countryside to the south of Ypres following the successful attack on the Messines Ridge in June 1917, relating trench maps and events to the landscape around us. Visited the German Front Line at BAYERNWALD (where there has been recent archaeology); the famous mine craters left from that morning; the villages of WYSCHAETE and MESSINES; the IRISH PEACE PARK. Visit to Hill 60 which saw an epic five day contest in the Spring of 1915. Visit to HILL 62 with its preserved British trenches and quirky museum, where we had our own lunch.
After lunch we followed the battle of PASSCHENDAELE from July to November 1917. Visiting a Front Line Cemetery and tracing the battle up to TYNECOT CEMETERY, where there are 12,000 burials and 35,000 names of the missing.
Arrived at LIJSSENTHOEK Hospital Cemetery late afternoon for a talk. Travel to POPERINGE for an evening group meal at the Restaurant DE KRING. Group walk to TALBOT HOUSE CONCERT HALL for a performance of ‘Sing me to Sleep’ at 20:15 hours. This presentation from two local writers and musicians was based around a series of letters written home from the battlefields by a British soldier: readings, music, songs, and audience participation. A most moving production. Departed POPERINGE and returned to Hotel ARIANE.
02 June:Something very different: Full day excursion to BRUGES including a river trip and the “ASCENSION DAY PROCESSION”. A Medieval type procession through the streets telling the Bible story and culminating in the display of the Holy Blood Relic. Wonderful display of pageantry! We had reserved front row seats in the Stand in the ‘Markt Square’.
Departed Bruges and return to the Hotel Ariane.
ATTENDED THE LAST POST CEREMONY at 20:00 hrs. This very moving formal ceremony, with hundreds of people, where Sue Jarrett and Jan Smith were given the privilege of placing a wreath to the ‘Glorious Dead’ of Eaton Socon and Colmworth, two of whose names are inscribed on the MENIN GATE. Namely: LCE CPL Frank Cousins (E/S) (Bedfordshire Regiment) and Sidney Charles Draper (C) (Bedfordshire Regiment).
We made our own supper arrangements in Ypres.
03 June:Departed Hotel Ariane after breakfast, buying chocolates and a coffee stop on the way! Visited the superb ‘IN FLANDERS FIELD MUSEUM’. A multi-sensory museum like no other, which drew together all we had seen over the previous two days. We then re-visited TALBOT HOUSE at 12:45. This was a lovely end to our Trip. A Talk and Tour of this wonderful house with its peaceful gardens, which was a place of rest, behind the Front Line for all servicemen regardless of rank. A moving service held in the Attic Chapel where Stephen Smith played the ‘harmonium with wobbly legs’ which ‘Tubby’ Clayton had used for services at The Front. Then a sing-song, around the piano with Stephen playing the songs which the soldiers had sung, in the exact place - ringing up through the house and after a cup of tea (a tradition of the house) we departed to Calais Port to check in at 16:20.
We arrived back in Colmworth at 20:45 local time approx.
We have to thank Sue and Dave Jarrett for their detailed research into the Fallen of Colmworth and Eaton Socon.
Some of these we were able to commemorate in the Ypres Area. For those we were able to visit, we held a brief service of Commemoration, Sue read out the obituary and then placed crosses at the grave of GUNNER HARRY HARRIS Royal Garrison Artillery, of E/S who is buried at DUHALLOW A.D.S. Cemetery.
Lance Corporal FRANK COUSINS (E/S) of the 1st Bedfordshire Regiment is commemorated at the MENIN GATE.
HENRY WILLIAM COLGRAVE (C) (Nelson Battalion, part of the 63rd Royal Naval Division) is buried in the St. Julien Dressing Station Cemetery, Langemarck. We held a similar brief service of commemoration at his graveside, with his relatives June and William Colgrave and Beverley Brown looking on, and placing their crosses.
SIDNEY CHARLES DRAPER (C) Bedfordshire Regiment is commemorated at the MENIN GATE.
ARCHIE HERBERT PELL (C) Rifleman in 13th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort’s Own) is commemorated on the Vis-En-Artois Memorial in Pas de Calais district, which we were unable to visit.
1