Today’s ride was 83 km with 770 m of climbing across the route from Amiens to Bapaume.
How can I possibly do any justice in trying to describe what we saw today… Villers Bretonneux, Le Hamel, Sailly Laurette, Morlancourt, Dernancourt, Albert, La Boisselle, Lochnager Crater, Pozieres, The Windmill, High Wood, The Caterpillar Valley, Longueval, Delville Wood, Flers, Ligny-Thilloy, Bapaume. I’ve read too much to ignore them, and some I’ve taught in detail desperately trying to get my students to ‘get it’ to understand just how important they are to our national psyche and why we should remember.
I’ve been to some of these places by car before but it’s completely different on a bike. You are slowed down, you feel the breeze, smell the scents, hear the sounds, your senses are heightened, and you taste the atmosphere. The tranquillity sharply contrasts with my knowledge of what happened here…it’s far too peaceful and genteel to be anything other than a quiet, rolling farming country until you see those names and note the abundance of cemeteries dotted about the landscape. Kenny picked some poppies and asked me to place them on some graves… he suggested I find the furthermost grave of an unknown soldier and place it there. I walked to the far corner of a graveyard of over 4000 headstones. I found one of the graves that said, ‘A soldier of the Great War …known only to God’ I placed the poppy down and I stood there, possibly the only person in the last 110 years besides the gardeners to spend any time at this grave. I found myself talking to them, wondering who they were, what was their life like, how did they die, and who did they leave behind? I told him a bit about myself but mostly I stood there in silence.
I think I will just post the photos, but even if they can’t explain it, if you are at all interested, you must come yourself…
Leaving Amiens
Villers Bretonneux and Hamel
The Somme Battlefields
The Evening
