Showing posts with label Ypres. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ypres. Show all posts

Monday, November 12, 2018

World War I Centenary: poppies and raincoats

'Poppy?' 'Must be on my other raincoat, mate.' My grandad Alf was in Muckydonia, go on, find it on the map. With the ASC he drove bully beef, bombs and bullets amid the horror there. So who the hell are you to tell me the sort of poppy I should wear? Grandad Jack was with the DLI at Wipers amid the mud and carnage there. So who the hell are you to tell me what raincoat I should wear? For more WWI family history, read Heirloom

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Remembering: a century on and half a world away

One hundred years ago today, Albert Hyatt, my great uncle, died at a dressing station near the town of Poperinge in Belgium. Knowing the anniversary would fall while we were away, I spent a few moments at the war memorial in Motueke, on New Zealand's South Island to honour his memory. Half a world away from Ripon, where he lived and worked, and the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, where he lies, his family remembered him a century on; a Yorkshireman among the Anzac sons of this Kiwi town.