TOURING THE WESTERN FRONT AND NORMANDY
2015 and Barbara, Christopher and I joined a school tour from St Francis Xavier College, Beaconsfield, to visit the Western Front battlefields and cemeteries of the Great War. There were twenty eight of us including some parents and senior students. The purpose of the trip was to give the students some idea of Australia's role in the terrible events of 1914-18. The rest of us were really "hangers on" with the exception of the teachers responsible for the kids. We would be travelling pretty solidly for two weeks beginning in Belgium and then down into France.. We arrived in Brussels on a bleak and drizzling Sunday morning, and boarded a bus for the Belgian city of Ypres (known to the soldiers of the day as "Wipers"). We passed the famous Menin Gate where the names of thousands of soldiers who lie in unmarked graves, are commemorated. Our tour wasn't really to start until the following day, so we settled into our hotel and then enjoyed lunch at a restaur...