Last Saturday, finding myself with an afternoon to spare on a brief visit to Devon, I decided to head for Plymouth, where three awe-inspiring cemeteries contain very nearly 1500 burials from the First World War, and more than 850 from the Second.
These places are vast…and I mean seriously vast. Continue reading
About a mile south of Ledegem another small cemetery provides a last resting place for some of the final casualties of a long war. Continue reading
The weather is foul, the roads are closed (cycle race), and Baldrick is not in one of his better moods. Still, we’re here, so I suggest we head for the centre of town and find our way to the cemetery from there. Lead on, Balders. Continue reading
I paid a flying visit (literally) to Dublin last weekend (Baldrick was unavailable due to his forthcoming audition for ‘Belgium’s Got Talent’) to visit the little known Grangegorman Military Cemetery in the north west of the city, and to fill some photographic holes left from my previous visit to the city nearly three years ago.
The cemetery is a fascinating place. Opened in 1876 for the burial of British service personnel and their families, there are 613 First World War graves here, alongside 12 Second World War graves, and a number of post-war burials. Many of the burials are men killed either during the 1916 Easter Rising or the War of Independence between 1919 and 1921. Others were wounded in France or Belgium and evacuated to Ireland (under British rule, remember, at the time) where they later died of their wounds. And there are the graves of men, many of whom were either going on, or returning from, leave, who died on 10th October 1918 when the R.M.S. Leinster was torpedoed in the Irish Sea. In time I shall post the full results of my Irish wanderings (yes, I know we aren’t in Flanders, but as you know by now, we do sometimes head elsewhere, and anyway it’s my site and I can go exactly where I like), but for the moment here’s a few photos of Grangegorman Military Cemetery to keep you going. Continue reading
The magnificent Animals in War memorial in Mayfair, London. You will find more photos, if it’s of interest, in the London section of the ‘Back in Blighty’ category.
Of all the many honours England gives
To those who fight for her, one stands apart,
He who receives it dies, yet ever lives
In England’s heart.
Bestowed on all alike, bondman or free,
This great last tribute England pays her sons;
There “Killed in action,” clear for all to see,
The legend runs.
A rude cut emblem for the noble dead,
A silent witness to her Army’s loss,
England sets up above each warrior’s head
The Wooden Cross.
Published in the Surrey Advertiser in March 1916, “The Wooden Cross” was written by Captain J. M. Rose-Troup of the Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment). Rose-Troup, wounded and captured on the 31st August 1914 during First Ypres, wrote the poem from a prisoner-of-war camp in Halle, but the newspaper notes that he has recently been transferred to Weilburg, and “he frequently asks news of his regiment, so if any of his comrades desire to send messages or greetings they will be forwarded by his mother if they are addressed to her at West Hill, Harrow-on-the-Hill”. I do hope they did.
The two crosses pictured, bondman and free, can be found in St. Mary’s Church, Byfleet, Surrey.
Loads of stuff going on in the ‘Back in Blighty’ section at the moment, and more new Flanders posts being worked on. All in good time.
The painting, by the way, is a detail from the Roll of Honour in St. Crewenna Church in Crowan, Cornwall.
