Back to the Somme: Part 6

| August 31, 2023

Delicate Hope Its been a long while…our last visit to the Somme. This day we end our Somme series (for the time being)…no doubt there will be a return. The last actual walk was August 2018 – a drive from Ypres to the Somme with friends and family…Rosemary…at long last has learned why this ground […]

Back to the Somme: Part 4

| June 30, 2023

The Mines On the first day of the Battle of the Somme (1 July 1916), 19 mines were detonated. Eight large and eleven smaller charges prepared by tunneling units of the British Army exploded on the German frontline. Both the mines at Lochnagar (detonated at 7:28 AM) and Hawthorn Ridge (detonated at 7:20 AM) were, […]

51st (Highland) Division Memorial (1924)

| September 3, 2018

Friends are good on the day of battle Located near to Y Ravine, within the present day Newfoundland Park, the 51st Division Memorial commemorates their success during the Battle of the Ancre 13 November 1916. The memorial project was aided by the good work of  Lieutenant Colonel Nangle, the former Roman Catholic padre of the […]

The Crunch and the Silence

| August 9, 2018

Thread Five The steady crunch of loose gravel beneath our feet announces our arrival to the names recorded here. As we move across from stone to grass the silence is heartfelt…it is respect. A mist upon the horizon, silhouettes at the Stone of Remembrance…the shock of looking upon the Thiepval Memorial for the first time. […]

I’m Dreaming of Home

| December 23, 2017

Greetings Christmas and New Year I can only imagine a group of soldiers at Christmas with their thoughts of home. Glasgow, Aberdeen, Kirkcaldy, Dundee, Kilmarnock, Falkirk, Peebles and others. Though at home they may rise in the morning to different landscapes they are brothers in this trench, this town, this Scotland. To soldiers near and far, […]