We all slept well in the new campervan, despite The Pup pinching the duvet.
We awoke to a chilly September morning, but the sun was starting to shine. After tea in bed, we waddled down with The Pup to the village Patisserie/Boulangerie for croissants and a French stick which we brought back to the Van for a leisurely breakfast. Out in the sun, it was quite warm, but everything dripped with dew.
We started to pack everything away, ready for our day. Doing my family history over the years, I discovered that two of my grandparent’s brothers lost their lives during World War One and knew where they were buried. Today, I was going to visit my grand uncle Ernest’s grave in Delville Wood Cemetery in the Somme.
We had a choice of zipping down there by motorway in an hour and a half or taking the more scenic route. We decided to drive on the country roads and enjoyed some fabulous scenery. It was more undulating countryside, with vast fields and far ranging views with pretty little villages. It then became more rolling with little communities huddled in the valleys – their red pantiles and red brick walls bright against the green fields and woodlands.
As we approached the Somme Department, the countryside returned to the vast fields and big skies before we arrived at the little village of Longueval and parked at the Delville Wood Cemetery. On one side of the road is the South African National Memorial to the fallen South Africans – a huge commemorative memorial housing the museum and on the opposite side, the Delville Wood Cemetery, with lines of regimented headstones of mainly British soldiers. We soon found Ernest’s headstone and spent a long time there, thinking about him, his family, the futility of war and what this area looked like 110 years ago. It must of been horrific. We wandered back, saddened to see headstones for unknown soldiers and wondered how many still laid out in the fields, lost forever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delville_Wood_Cemetery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delville_Wood_South_African_National_Memorial
The actual Delville Wood that surrounds the South African Memorial was devastated as the Germans fought hard to hold onto this strategic stronghold, the trees hiding their position. The tall trees now were no more than a hundred years old, as the whole wood was replanted. We had a quick walk through these woods, comtemplating the life of a soldier during these barbaric times. It sent shivers down our spines.
We walked back and decided to visit the bar/cafe we had seen on the way in for lunch. Sadly, our timing was bad – they had just shut. So we wandered back to The Van and made ourselves a brew and finished off the breakfast baguette while we researched more about the war in this area. We discovered that Ernest’s regiment, the Kings Royal Rifle Corps actually attacked a nearby wood, called High Wood which again the Germans occupied, so we drove over there to find out more. We couldn’t enter the wood as it was privately owned, but stood outside and see its value to any army that seized it. It commanded long distance views across vast open fields with little way of cover for almost 360 degrees so the Germans could see any advancing regiment quite easily. The Allies were sitting ducks really which resulted in high casualty numbers. But the powers above continued to send in troops and in the September of 1916, the Germans finally surrendered the woodland. It was here, quite likely, where Ernest was killed in action in July 1916 aged 21.
The day had left us deep in thought, emotional and thinking how futile wars were and yet a hundred years on, the human race is still fighting each other. We headed off, passing numerous little brick walled cemeteries filled with headstones, neatly in rows and standing to attention, often in the middle of fields. It made you realise how many men died during the Battle of the Somme and how many just in this area alone. Just awful.
Our campsite wasn’t too far away in the small village of Feuilleres. Luckily we had pre-booked before we had left the UK and thank goodness we had as the place was full. We checked in and found our pitch – a private corner surrounded by hedges, which didn’t make it easy to get The Van in. After a lot of backwards and forwards, we parked it sideways and put the kettle on, sunning ourselves. After our cuppa, we checked out the facilities and went for a walk along the adjacent canal to stretch our legs including The Pup’s. It was a very pleasant sunny evening. On the way back, we called in on the campsite’s bar and ordered a couple of beers and a bag of crisps – the beer went straight to our heads, so we headed back to The Van and raided our limited larder and mustered up a sandwich. (We had basically emptied our rundown fridge and larder from home when we left yesterday with a vague plan to stock up with a supermarket visit…………..it hasn’t happened yet). It worked, but a supermarket is defintely on the agenda for tomorrow.
The night closed in as we began to research Franklin, another grand uncle lost in WW1 which we plan to visit tomorrow.
apathtosomewhere 