Local History

WW1 - A family tour of The Somme & War Graves

Following a family re-union and a lot of Internet ‘trawling’, Mark and I visited London and the Somme area of France in April 2004. We placed flowers on the grave of my grandfather and grandmother in West Norwood cemetery. The following day we went through the Channel Tunnel to France and drove to the area of the Battle of the Somme, where my father’s younger brother is buried in a Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery – Hébuterne. There we laid a wreath of British Legion Poppies. Second Lieutenant Henry Bastick Pilgrim, then 22, was shot at 7.00pm on the 1st of July, 1916, a day that holds the sad record for numbers killed. With the new information I was able to provide, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission have up dated their records. While in the area we visited many other Commonwealth war grave cemeteries and were very impressed by the level of care and attention they receive. All were superbly maintained; grass neatly cut and rolled with small colourful plants around each scrubbed headstone. The entrances each had a bronze box let into the wall, containing a list of those buried, plus a grave plan. There is also a loose leaf visitor’s book to sign. Virtually everyone signing had commented on the loving care with which the cemetery had been maintained. The Thiepval Memorial to those with no known grave, designed by Sir Edwin Lutchens, is particularly magnificent and the largest in the world. It contains the carved names of 73,357 military personnel with no known grave. What struck us on this trip was the almost total lack of any commercialism in this very quiet and now so peaceful area of France. A visitor centre is being built near to the Thiepval Memorial, but hopefully this will not intrude. We are both very keen to return one day and learn more of the atrocious conditions those brave men fought and died under. It is good that after all these years succeeding generations still remember them. Harry Pilgrim.