This year’s GCSE First World War Battlefields trip took place between Thursday 24 May and Sunday 27 May. Despite setting off nearly an hour later than planned, due to the coach driver getting lost in Claughton, the rest of the trip pretty much went as expected. However, it will be a great relief when work is finally completed on the widening of the M1 motorway!
Below are some photographs of the trip. Click on the photograph for a larger version
One very notable feature of this year’s trip was the numerous visits made to sites of relevance for Old Birkonians. Not only are Old Birkonians commemorated on memorials such as that at the Menin Gate, Thiepval and Vimy Ridge, but we were able to visit the gravesides of many ex-pupils who lost their lives during the Great War. One of them, J. M. S. Sykes, buried in ‘Y’ Ravine Cemetery in Newfoundland Memorial Park, even has the School motto, Beati Mundo Corde, etched on his gravestone. Another, E. C. Smith, who died aged 18, is buried in the same cemetery as Raymond Asquith, the son of the then Prime Minister. Bearing in mind the recent furore surrounding Prince Harry’s non-participation in the Iraq conflict, the resonance of this visit was not lost on the students. At this point, many students seemed to realise the true horrors of the war and gained a better appreciation of the values and attitudes of a distant age.
Other significant individuals also lie buried on the Western Front. Captain Noel Chavasse VC and Bar MC, who did not even fire a shot in anger as he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, is one of only three men in history to have been awarded two Victoria Crosses, and the solitary recipient of such an honour in the First World War. The moving epitaph on his gravestone reads: ‘Greater love hath no man but this. That a man lay down his life for his friends.’ Rifleman Valentine Joe Strudwick died at the age of just 15 in January 1916 and lies buried at Essex Farm Cemetery, where the poppy legend began when Captain John McCrae wrote his poem, ‘In Flanders Fields’. Perhaps, most poignant of all, Joshua Beaumont of Year 10 was able to visit the graveside of his Great Great Grandfather, Private H. G. Delamere of New Ferry. This was perhaps the right note on which to end the trip as the students were able to realise just how emotive and personal war can be.
Unfortunately, we still had to contend with just missing an early afternoon ferry and the dreaded UK motorway network. A weary tour party eventually arrived back at School a little after 11pm on Sunday 27 May. Fortunately, we were all able to enjoy the benefit of re-charging our batteries over half-term.
