Regents Review Winter '18

The Regents Review Winter 2018

DEPARTMENTAL NEWS

Belgium At 5.00am on Thursday 15th November, 3 teachers and 31 Year 8 students departed Southampton for a visit to the Battlefields in Belgium. After a pleasant journey to Folkestone and a quick Shuttle crossing we arrived in sunny France for the journey down to Ypres. As we arrived in Ypres the cloud came in and the temperature dropped but we had a dry day to visit the sites. We started at Essex Farm cemetery where the students were told about the first battle of Ypres and shown gravestones representing unknown soldiers who died at the battle but their bodies were never recovered. We also learned about a 15 year old boy called Valentine Joe Strudwick who had lied about his age to join up and became the youngest serving fatality of the war. The students were shocked by the fact that he was not much older than them. Our next stop was the trenches where students could see how cramped and confined the conditions were. This was a brief stop as there was a very strong odour coming from a nearby composting station! From here, we went onto Tyne Cot cemetery. This was where two of our students laid the school wreath as a mark of respect for the fallen heroes of World War One. This was a very proud moment for Jack Wood-Cheevers and Cameron Foley as they represented the school. After a tour of the Flanders Museum, students checked into the Poppies Hostel for a night where they made up their rooms and then we headed out

for dinner at a local restaurant. After a satisfying meal we then secured a spot for the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate. This was a moving moment and students respected the occasion with a sombre silence. Students then headed back to the hostel for some leisure time before heading to bed. Day two started bright and early at 7.00am and after breakfast we headed back to the coach for the two hour drive to the Somme. We started our tour at Newfoundland Park,

which is dedicated to the Canadian soldiers who fought in World War One. Students were again lucky enough to experience the confines of a trench and were surprised at how close the enemy was. It was a foggy cold day which added to the experience. Students were told about how the soldiers needed to keep quiet especially in foggy times as their voices would carry across No Man’s Land. After this we headed to the Thiepval Memorial – the largest memorial in Europe. On it there were 42,000 names of lost or missing soldiers from World War One. Again, students were shocked at the amount of names on this memorial. We also saw different gravestones compared to the ones visited at Essex farm and Tyne Cot – these were the French graves that were more simple and less ornate than the British graves as the French could not afford the limestone. Our final stop of the tour was the Lochnagar Crater at la Boisselle, Pozière. This was a crater that was caused by a shell on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme and it was so loud that it is rumoured to have been heard in Buckingham Palace! The soil from the crater went up to 1 kilometre in the air and left a massive hole in the ground. From the Lochnagar Crater, we departed to the Shuttle terminal for the journey home. Students enjoyed their time away and made the following comments: “I really enjoyed the trip. It made me realise how hard the soldiers had it.” “The memorial was staggering. So many names of lost soldiers.”

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