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As I say pretty frequently on this site, it is the job of a tour guide to bring the land to life - to help you see what is essentially, a lot of green landscape!
Every so often however, a photograph comes along that captures perfectly what we are looking at - helping to transport us back in time.
Below is an image taken at Tyne Cot Cemetery 100 years ago and below that a modern view.
Get in touch to come and explore some sites with me.
Sophie
I recently bought a new laptop, and on transferring my photographs to the new machine, found out that I had used almost all of my memory space. It didn't take long to find out how that had happened - I had 22,000 photographs on there!
Admittedly they weren't all battlefield photographs, there were lots of questionable ones from my Uni days where I'm throwing shapes on the dance floor often with a luminous blue tongue it seems!
On scrolling through my battlefield snaps, I saw that I had many of the same photograph taken on different trips and tours. I thought about deleting these but then realised that some of what I saw in the early days of my trips more than ten years ago can now no longer be seen.
Some bunkers and points of interest have been reclaimed by nature, so those photos are all that remain of their existence. Some bunkers have been left to fall into a state of disrepair and each picture shows a different element crumbling away. It is such a shame when I return to spots to see that we can no longer view or enter bunkers which raises a question about whether there should be human intervention to protect these sites (though many are on private farmland).
The moral of the story...don't delete those battlefield photographs!
For many years I had heard from my Grandfather about 'the Trunk'. This was his fathers trunk where all his Great War gear was stored. When he returned from France, his wife understandably took his army clothing and related bits and bobs, put them in the trunk and refused to have it opened in the house.
Her husband, my Great-Grandfather of the Border Regiment, had been shot whilst attacking High Wood on the Somme. Whilst laying on the ground with a bullet wound in his thigh, a German came towards him and bayoneted him in the stomach. Remarkably he survived this encounter and he wrote graphically about seeing his intestines next to him on the ground.
A few weeks ago, I was delighted to be at the opening of the trunk alongside my father and grandfather. Here are the pictures!
Here are a sample of photos taken on my last coach tour.
I love guiding coach groups. They bring together a great collection of people, all keen to soak up the sites of the battlefields. My job as a guide is not only to impart some knowledge and stir up that historical passion but to make sure everyone has the best time possible.
Tours always start with a hearty breakfast, and this time we were at the Folkestone tunnel terminal, bright and early to make the most of the day.
Once on the continent we headed straight to Tyne Cot, the largest Commonwealth War Graves site in the world. There is always an audible gasp when we arrive and I begin to give some of the staggering statistics and experiences that highlight Third Ypres.
We were lucky enough to have a duo on the bugles to play the last post as we gathered at the Cross of Sacrifice for a lovely memorial service. As I looked up from my order of service sheet, I saw how the group of 55 had doubled in number as other visitors to the cemetery came to pay their respects alongside us.
After another stop to take in some refreshing Passchendaele beer, we moved onto Hooge to walk through the trenches, get an understanding of the war underground and to see the artefacts still littered across the land.
After some free time in Ypres, we regathered for a lovely meal before heading to the Menin Gate where I was asked to lay a wreath on behalf of the group - an incredibly humbling experience.
We made our way back that evening, full from a day of good company and grateful to the men that allowed us to enjoy a peaceful and free Ypres.
If you'd like me to join your coach group as your guide, or you are interested in me arranging a tour for you, please do get in touch.
Sophie
Tyne Cot Cemetery
You don't have to go to Europe to see the scars of the Great war - it is all around us wherever we may be.
Last week as I drove through the South of Scotland I stopped off at Quintinshill, a place sadly famous for being the spot at which Britain's worst rail disaster occurred.
A troop train packed with 500 Gallipoli bound soldiers, mostly Royal Scots, crashed into a passenger service which was stationary on the main line near the border between Scotland and England. Just over a minute later, an express train travelling north crashed into the wreckage of the first crash.
Gas from the lighting system of the troop train's old wooden carriages caught fire and it took 23 hours to extinguish.
More than 200 soldiers were killed, as well as 12 civilians.
In addition to the deaths, there were 246 people injured.
The carriages which transported The Royal Scots that day were lit by gas. The hot coals ignited the gas tanks and set off a huge fire.
There were reports that some trapped soldiers were shot rather than suffer the pain of being burnt to death. Of the half-battalion on the train only sixty-two survived unscathed.
Those soldiers from The Royal Scots who survived the crash looked so destitute when they returned to Edinburgh that they were taunted by schoolchildren who thought they were enemy prisoners of war.
While the signalmen responsible for the crash at Quintinshill were both jailed, they served just over a year in prison and were re-employed in the railways after their release.
