LETTER TO LOCAL PAPER
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Dear Editor, I have attached details of our Remembrance parade on the WW1 battlefields including details of the trip. 48 members of Gravesham District Explorer Scouts and Leaders set of on Friday morning at 8am on a trip they will remember for the rest of there lives taking part in a weekend of Remembrance in France and Belgium. Visiting all these places in one weekend before returning home at 11pm on Sunday. The first port of call was at Tyne Cot Cemetery were 12,000 Commonwealth soldiers are buried and we laid the first of two wreaths. then it was on to, Sanctuary Wood a muddy trench system & museum, Hill 62 & Caterpillar Crater. On Saturday we visited the Museum in Peronne and then went ob a Guided Tour of Fricourt the German cemetery , La Boisselle , Lochnagar Crater which is 100m across a mine crater created by tunnelling under the German lines then exploding them this was one is 19 mines along the Messin Ridge the explosions were heard in London. Then on to Thiepval a British Memorial to the 73,367 men still missing were we left more poppies. Beaumont Hamel Trench system were 800 left the trench but by the dead tree in no mans land only 68 were left. In the evening we made new friends with the Scouts of Cambria. On Sunday we firsted visited Wellington Quarry were over 20,000 soliders lived underground before going over the top. Then to Vimy Ridge the Canadian memorial 30m high and Canadian trench system . Before being given the Honour to stand Guard over the wreath laying ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres. Here we were asked to be the Guard of Honour at the Ceremony on Remembrance Sunday Standing on parade as our flags were flown and then lowed as the last post was played was very moving. To then stand as the guard of honour as ours and others laid wreaths was so humbling. We Will Never Forget A Martin ESL |