Yesterday – in the cause of rehearsing an expedition later this month with my father and one of his octogenarian pals - a brother and I undertook a 380 mile, seventeen hour, day trip to the battlefields & cemeteries around the Ypres Salient in Belgium. Such scouting runs are always valuable. You can check the distance (and the time it takes to travel) from A to B … and then C … and whether in practice the landmarks that initially seemed worth visiting - i.e. in theory, on paper - really cut the mustard. Furthermore you can work out the best sequence in which to see what, allowing of course for planned pit stops & meals along the way.

The trenches as preserved at Hill 62

We were hampered somewhat by the atrocious weather. All day, on both sides of the Channel, amidst the bright sunshine we were forced to endure regular torrential showers & squalls that rendered leaving the sanctuary of buildings and/or the car exceedingly unattractive and possibly dangerous. My brother however was indefatigable in his enthusiasm to hunt down the new places that his impressive research had identified but whose exact locations were speculative to say the least. At one point, whilst we were looking for a feature called The Caterpillar near Hill 60, I left the car with some trepidation to follow him striding purposefully off down a small, muddy farm track in a monsoon and soon became soaked to the skin.

“What did you say we were looking for, again?”

“The Caterpillar, a former mine crater. It’s a large hole in the ground, now filled with water …” he advised, trudging onwards.

I looked slowly into the fields on both sides of the track and then back towards the car we had left parked on the main road and from which a fast-running stream was now cascading towards us.

“I don’t want to trouble you, but after the downpour we’ve experienced in the last ten minutes there’s a lot of them about …”

Inevitably events proved that we were nowhere near the true Caterpillar, but instead happily defiling someone’s private land in the cause of ‘research’. That said, The Caterpillar - when we did find it - was an amazing discovery, probably worth our continental invasion on its own.

(Above): Tyne Cot cemetery

One new place we visited was Tyne Cot, the largest British War Cemetery in the world (11,871 graves). During the Third Battle of Ypres the Allies mounted the infamous Passchendale Offensive – for fourteen weeks from 31st July 1917 – and took 300,000 casualties for their pains, later withdrawing from the ground they had gained for ’strategic reasons’. They have a new exhibition centre alongside the cemetery and - while visitors look at the various exhibits - one by one, they project a large photograph of each deceased soldier onto a wall and a female voice sombrely intones their name and age. It’s highly-effective and plays havoc with your emotions.

(Above): the Menin Gate at about 7.40pm last night

Overall we had a highly-successful day and decided to cap it by having a meal in Ypres itself and attending The Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate. It was jam-packed with tourists & visitors at least twenty minutes before the 8.00pm due time.

As we approached we noticed a contingent of Australian war veterans (and/or wives and families) forming up – they looked classic Okker-types, straight from Central Casting and Anzac Cove at Gallipoli.

About a minute before the ceremony was due to begin the buzzing crowd heard someone in charge of the Aussies order them to attention and then ‘quick-march’. There was immediate silence and, as they came on under the arch, a spontaneous outbreak of prolonged applause which - judging by the looks on their faces - they had certainly not been expecting. As they halted, turned and stood to attention, chests puffed out with pride, one could not but feel a sense of thanks & awe, not least because - as they paid tribute to the dead of the First World War here - they were probably also remembering their own comrades who had died in the Second.

The ceremony then proceeded. The buglers were terrific, the mournful phrases of The Last Post echoing poignantly around the arch. I don’t mind admitting that your author’s eyes were watering, the bottom lip beginning to go, like many of those around me. An Australian kid of about ten or twelve came out and did the honours on those famous last four lines from Edmund Blunden’s poem For The Fallen and we all joined in with the ending “We will remember them”. It was a magical & fitting finale to our trip.

Afterwards, as we strolled back to our car in the town square, I made my brother laugh out loud with a throwaway comment on what we had just experienced - “Coming here is rather like attending Van Morrison concerts: you can get two or three on the trot that are ordinary and then suddenly a brilliant one”. We sorted ourselves out and drove home via the Channel Tunnel. I finally hit the sack about midnight, tired but elated.