Post by stuart1974 on Jul 31, 2017 22:50:59 GMT
Just returned from a holiday to France, had a few days going to Disneyland which was a really great time for us all.
Managed to survive the motorways too, which during our time there I read in the press that deaths on French roads had increased by 15% over the previous year. Their driving was pretty bad (although i am getting used to it), for example they would indicate as they changed lanes rather than prior so no warning and would leave them on so you are never quite sure if they are going to move out again.
On one occasion, I put on my headlights and the lorry driver thought I flashed them to signal he could pull out which resulted in hasty manoeuvring on my part.
Anyway, the reason I was posting is in relation to spending a day around the Somme area. We followed a route known as the Remembrance Trail which took us through various towns and villages including a stop at Thiepval which is a famously (very) big monument to the victims of the Somme battles. It is dedicated to those never found, just to put it in context, those missing from just that part of the Western Front for that period (months not years) would fill up Old Trafford.
Some may already appreciate this but the sheer number of smaller cemeteries dotted around the region has to be seen to be understood. There were genuinely dozens of varying sizes and it seemed that as you turned a corner there was another one.
With the current commemorations of the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) too, it is hard to fully comprehend the horrors.
Managed to survive the motorways too, which during our time there I read in the press that deaths on French roads had increased by 15% over the previous year. Their driving was pretty bad (although i am getting used to it), for example they would indicate as they changed lanes rather than prior so no warning and would leave them on so you are never quite sure if they are going to move out again.
On one occasion, I put on my headlights and the lorry driver thought I flashed them to signal he could pull out which resulted in hasty manoeuvring on my part.
Anyway, the reason I was posting is in relation to spending a day around the Somme area. We followed a route known as the Remembrance Trail which took us through various towns and villages including a stop at Thiepval which is a famously (very) big monument to the victims of the Somme battles. It is dedicated to those never found, just to put it in context, those missing from just that part of the Western Front for that period (months not years) would fill up Old Trafford.
Some may already appreciate this but the sheer number of smaller cemeteries dotted around the region has to be seen to be understood. There were genuinely dozens of varying sizes and it seemed that as you turned a corner there was another one.
With the current commemorations of the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) too, it is hard to fully comprehend the horrors.
