Great Uncle Archie

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Huge

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I bet everyone on here has a similar connection. This is mine.
We've all either known, been, or perhaps raised, a 17 year old boy. Check the inscribed dedication on my mum?s uncle?s gravestone. How on earth did his parents decide what to inscribe on their 17 year old son?s gravestone after he bled out from leg wounds in a tent in France.
I noticed most of the dedications on the other gravestones were empty but didn?t think about why until today. Any parent will know how their child shines when you say ?well done? and you mean it. I can?t imagine having to inscribe it in stone.
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This was the first time anyone had visited Great Uncle Archie, it was on the 99th anniversary of his death. Granny was 14 when she lost her older brother. A family tragedy repeated millions of times across Europe.
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Photo 22-03-2017, 11 56 53.jpg
Photo 22-03-2017, 11 57 27.jpg
 
How very sad Huge. As you say, this, all over Europe and beyond!

My friends and I went to Belgium and France in 2016 to visit some of these military cemeteries, British, French and German!
I found that you are never quite ready to accept the pure and complete sadness of it all.

Back to the inscription at the foot of the headstone, not all have them and I'm not sure if it was an option for families to inscribe something. It may be quite possible it was an option they had to pay for.
I found that these were the hardest to read and were really upsetting!

I've just noticed the date uncle Archie died.....25th April 1918, my birthday! Not the year though......honest.
 
Indeed Hugh, most of us have a close connection to both wars one way or another.

I am going to France tomorrow to spend a couple of days around Thiepval to take it all in.
 
soofsayer I am going to France tomorrow to spend a couple of days around Thiepval to take it all in.[/QUOTE said:
Been there too Soof! One of our group was looking for his great grandfather's name on the monument. He found his name inscribed and said a few words for him. What hit home though was my mates comment that he was the only one in his whole family to go there, Evan after 100 years!
 
"Over the top"... can just imagine these teenage lads at the blast of a whistle or often to the skirl of the pipes leaving the trenches and getting mown down from a machine gun nest !.

Never has so much been owed......


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Something like this stu.

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Something like this stu.
Vimy. Nice one Andy. Misty day. Must be very moody there (between the groups of school kids!).
I remember having a word with myself for being up-tight about the kids running up and down the trenches because I was once a 14 year old boy (get a grip Hugh) and also because I think all those dead soldiers would prefer kids messing about that standing quietly. I dunno.
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I bet the memorial looks amazing in the mist.
 
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I got in and out quickly as more and more coach loads started to arrive. I have been very lucky with the timings yesterday and today getting most of the sites entirely to myself, which has been incredibly moving in the silence.

It was 6c this morning so yes, I felt rather over privileged being a ?bit chilly? in my winter coat and scarf. Those boys had it real bad. One thing that is really hard to show in pictures is that the landscape is continuous craters everywhere, nothing is flat. Still many soldiers bodies missing out in these woods. RIP.
 
I got in and out quickly as more and more coach loads started to arrive. I have been very lucky with the timings yesterday and today getting most of the sites entirely to myself, which has been incredibly moving in the silence.

It was 6c this morning so yes, I felt rather over privileged being a ‘bit chilly’ in my winter coat and scarf. Those boys had it real bad. One thing that is really hard to show in pictures is that the landscape is continuous craters everywhere, nothing is flat. Still many soldiers bodies missing out in these woods. RIP.

That's a good thing you're doing, Andy.
H
ps. Going very early is top advice.
 
Great pics Soof... resonates with my visit to Auschtwitz Birkenau a couple of years ago.

No winners in war just pain, misery and hardship.



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Here's a wee bit of history...

The Skylark was used as a tour boat on Loch Lomond as far back as I can remember..it sunk at it's mooring at Balloch Bridge...but looks as though it's going to have a happy ending. It was one of the wee Dunkirk boats that rescued the boys from France.. The picture of it in Red livery is how everyone from here remembers it..and how it looked before they pulled it from the water next to the Balloch Hotel..sorry state .. poor wee thing !




BBC News - Dunkirk Little Ship to be floating museum on River Clyde
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-46437036
5afb5aa4de48eb881e322f8f5478c672.jpg
5c2a7b7dfa3fdc6a8634d9e960648b92.jpg


Stuart's Galaxy sent this !
 
Here's a wee bit of history...

The Skylark was used as a tour boat on Loch Lomond as far back as I can remember..it sunk at it's mooring at Balloch Bridge...but looks as though it's going to have a happy ending. It was one of the wee Dunkirk boats that rescued the boys from France.. The picture of it in Red livery is how everyone from here remembers it..and how it looked before they pulled it from the water next to the Balloch Hotel..sorry state .. poor wee thing !


BBC News - Dunkirk Little Ship to be floating museum on River Clyde
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-46437036

Stuart's Galaxy sent this !


Blimey Stuart. I can't believe what an unbelievable coincidence it is you brought that up. Can't explain now, but I'll be in touch on the subject of Little Ships soon, pal. H
 
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