Friday 19th March


At 1p.m. 46 S4 and S5 pupils and 5 staff (Miss Oxley, Mrs Faulkner, Mrs Peterson, Mr Braund and Mr Owen) gathered to embark on our fourth visit to the First World War battlefields .We met with our usual guide, Peter Crook, and our driver, Tony. After loading the coach with massive bags and colourful wellies, we left for Hull and the ferry, the “Pride of Bruges”.


The overnight ferry to Zeebrugge was fantastic. Pupils shared cosy, en-suite cabins for 4 and treated the “all you can eat buffet” as a personal challenge (that means you Luke). Many pupils spent the evening watching the latest Sherlock Holmes film in the cinema or shopping, or getting locked in the bathroom if you’re Millie. The singer in the Starlight Lounge wasn’t up to much and we urged Luke (who needed to practice for his piano exam) to accompany singers Sian and Sophie but the boat crew wouldn’t allow it.
 
Saturday 20th March


After a smooth overnight crossing and an enormous breakfast, we docked at Zeebrugge, unfortunately 2 hours late due to “technical difficulties”. Happily the forecast storms didn’t arrive and we drove to Ieper under overcast but dry skies. Our first stop was the “In Flanders Fields” museum at about midday.


The museum is situated in the Cloth Hall in the beautiful main square, which looks medieval but in fact dates from the 1920s. The area was re-built in its original form, after being flattened during the war. The museum is a mixture of modern, interactive exhibits and original artefacts. Every visitor is given a character card naming an individual who lived during the war. You can follow events in their life and their eventual fate by inserting the card into various machines around the museum. The most moving of the exhibits for me was the gas exhibition where several designs of gas mask are displayed and a gas attack is reconstructed whilst Wilfred Owen’s famous poem is read.


After about 45 minutes in the museum, we took a lunch break in the main square, where the sun was now shining. The afternoon visit involved wellies, as we visited the museum at Sanctuary Wood. The museum consists of preserved trenches and artefacts. The owner’s grandfather had been a farmer in the area in 1914. He fled when the war broke out and when he returned after the war was ended, he found his farm gone and the land devastated. He decided to keep the land as it was (after making it safe) and open it as a museum. You can walk through the preserved trenches and view the enormous jumble of shells, uniforms, barbed wire and guns. There are also tunnels throughout the site but they are unsafe, especially if Mrs F. Is watching you! Shell holes filled with water pock mark the gardens.


After a visit of about an hour, we left for Tyne Cot, the largest British military cemetery in the world. It has 11,956 graves and memorials for 34,888 missing soldiers. The visit was a very moving experience. The pupils each had a wooden poppy cross, which many of the chose to lay here.
The race was then on to get to our hotel, unpack, get changed and return to Ieper for the evening. At the restaurant in the main square, they managed to serve 53 of us with chicken and chips and ice cream in just 45minutes – a remarkable achievement!


At 8p.m. every evening the traffic through Ieper stops to honour the dead of the First World War. We arrived at the Menin Gate at 7.30 and already about a thousand people had gathered. The Menin Gate is an impressive memorial to 54,896 soldiers from the First World War who have no known grave. At precisely 8p.m. the traffic stopped and 3 buglers stepped out to sound the Last Post. The crowd was absolutely silent and shivers ran down your spine as the sound of the bugles echoed around the huge monument. 

Alex Wilson and Paul Dinsdale represented Tower College as they laid a wreath in the official ceremony. They did it immaculately and certainly looked the part in their uniforms, not much younger than many of the soldiers they were honouring. We all felt very proud. Eerily a thunderstorm broke out and rivalled the sound of the bugles as the ceremony ended.


In complete contrast and in torrential rain, we headed for the chocolate shop. The owner had closed the shop just for us and was offering some unmissable bargains.


Full of chocolate, wet through but happy with our purchases, we returned to our hotel. After drying off, it was time for the games room. Miss Oxley and Mrs Peterson played a nail-biting and hard-fought game of table tennis. It ended in a one-all draw and the decider is promised on the next trip. It was a well-stocked room, with table tennis, pool and karaoke.
 

Sunday 21st March


Breakfast at 7.15 was a bit of a disappointment after the ferry and we discovered that we had to make our own packed lunches. At 8a.m. we set off for the Somme, where we arrived at about 10.30.


Serre was the location of a huge and disastrous attack by the Accrington, Sheffield and Doncaster Pals’ Battalions on 1st July 1916. It was the first time many of them had gone into battle. We donned our wellies and Peter led us on a walk of the battlefield. We found some discarded shells from 1916 and searched the fields for shrapnel. The wind whipped across the open fields and it was easy to identify with the hardships faced by the young lads who went into battle that day.


Next we travelled the short distance to Canada! More accurately, we visited the Newfoundland Memorial Park, where 851 young Canadians went over the top on 1st July 1916. By that evening just 68 of them were left to answer roll call. The area where they fought was given to the Canadian government as a tribute to these men. The battlefield has been preserved as it was. Two young Canadian students, Carla and Ottalia, showed us round.  They were very friendly and informative as well as sounding like they were from High School Musical. It was a sobering experience and the pupils listened well and learned a lot.
It was lunchtime by now and so we took our packed lunches to the famous “Le Tommy” cafe, where many off-duty British soldiers had eaten during the war. Tommy was able to supplement our meagre packed lunches with “frites” and mayonnaise.


Our final visit was to the nearby Lochnagar Crater. It was caused by a massive mine laid by the British under the German trenches. When it was detonated at 7.20a.m. on 1st July 1916, it was the loudest man-made sound ever created. It was an awesome sight, an enormous crater over 80 years old.


Then it was time to return to Zeebrugge for our journey home on the “Pride of York”. By now we were seasoned sailors and enjoyed our dinners to the full. An added attraction this time was the teenage disco, which our pupils enjoyed to the full. We also began Rhys’s birthday celebrations.
 
Monday 22nd March


We docked in Hull after another smooth and uneventful crossing and boarded the coach. It had been a slow passage through immigration and an accident on the M62 necessitated a detour through Beverley, so we arrived back at school a little later than anticipated at 12.45p.m.  Thankfully all parents were very prompt and all that remained by 1p.m. were Alice’s wellies.


It was an excellent trip. The children were well-behaved, polite and good company. They kept the tidiest rooms of any trip I’ve ever run and asked the most thoughtful and intelligent questions.


Thank you to everyone for making it such a rewarding and worthwhile trip. Thank you to the boys who were so willing to help load and unload the wellies and the luggage. Thank you to parents for allowing their children to come. Thank you to the staff for looking after the children so well. The trip couldn’t take place without them.


It is an experience we will all remember for a very long time to come.


Article by Mrs Faulkner