chrislock Posted 9 March , 2004 Share Posted 9 March , 2004 Have just returned from the Bellawarde Ridge. Whilst reading the Battalion war diary on my relatives death on this site, I was distracted by diggers and lorries working on the fun park. The area is a veritable battle site, how many soldiers remains must still be there awful place! How on earth did somebody get permission to build of all things, a FUN PARK! Is nothing sacred? I know times must move on, roads, bridges, factories etc, but a Fun Park! On a place like Bellawarde, unbelievable! Anyone know when and how it became there? Chris. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco Posted 9 March , 2004 Share Posted 9 March , 2004 So no fun park in W. Flanders then? Regards, Marco Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Baker Posted 9 March , 2004 Share Posted 9 March , 2004 Our great uncle Gabriel Townsend was killed on or very near the site of Bellewaarde Park, in September 1915. He was aged 17. Had he been alive I am sure he wouldn't mind the sound of happy (international) childrens voices there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrislock Posted 9 March , 2004 Author Share Posted 9 March , 2004 Each to their own Marco! Fair point Chris, any idea when the park was bult or laid down? Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unicorn Posted 9 March , 2004 Share Posted 9 March , 2004 Hello Chris In 2004 Bellewaerde Park celebrates its 50th anniversary!! greetings danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Somme1916 Posted 9 March , 2004 Share Posted 9 March , 2004 50 years! Wow, I had no idea the park had been there that long. Personally I've got mixed emotions about the park's location. On one hand I agree with Chris; the sound of children’s' laughter & happy voices is one of the best memorials to why soldiers do what they do. On the other hand, the site has some significant historic value and should have been preserved. I'm all for a Fun Park but I wish it had been build about 1km closer to Ypres or further away. Oh well nothing can be done about this site now. Go and have fun at Bellewaerde Park, Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 9 March , 2004 Share Posted 9 March , 2004 Some of our Belgian members are more qualified to comment, but this park is on land owned by Baron de Vinck (?sp) who sold it in the 50s - which would tie in with the park being 50 years old. It was then developed; remember in the 50s there was not the level of visitors there are now. Personally, I would like to think of a place where so many died being used for the fun and enjoyment of children - I have taken my kids there many times, and they love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurel Sercu Posted 9 March , 2004 Share Posted 9 March , 2004 Some of our Belgian members are more qualified to comment, Paul, Of course I have my opinion about that, but I intended not to express it. I don't wish to be dragged into an endless discussion. But since you kind of invite me, only this : 1. We live here. Fifty-two weeks a year. 2. The war ended 85 years ago. (Which does not mean ...) 3. Our area suffered for four long years. What was left were ruined villages and a wilderness, where the civilians who came back couldn't even find the place where their house had been. No need to make it suffer longer by preventing it from developing the way other areas do. 4. The whole Ypres area was a battlefield. (The Ypres Salient - the frontlines of the four Battles of Ypres - must have been an area of 25 km x 10 km) 5. It's not that right after the Great War "we" said : "There was a battlefield at Bellewaarde ? Great ! Let's make it a Fun Park !" This park started as a very modest park (and not a fun park), in the fifties, and gradually grew into what it is now.) 6. And something to end with. We all know that there was a strong tendency in Great Britain, right after the war, to keep the Ypres ruins as an permanent monument. Afterwards this plan shrank to the central area (Saint Martin's Cathedral and the Cloth Hall), and then was abandoned. Also because the Ypres people said : "We want our town back !" And I once heard, that when they asked those prominent people in the UK, where they had to go for a new town, that the answer was : "Build one on ... the battlefields !" (It was W. Churchill I think who gave this answer, but I may be wrong. Maybe he didn't mean to build a fun park, but yet ...) Chris, don't take this personally. It's not a reaction to your initial posting. It's just that I wanted this to be known... Aurel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
salientpoints Posted 9 March , 2004 Share Posted 9 March , 2004 And for those who want to know about the park... http://www.sixflagseurope.com/Bellewaerde/...ex_en.cfm?lg=en Ryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Somme1916 Posted 9 March , 2004 Share Posted 9 March , 2004 Aurel, Fantastic view from a person who calls the former battlefields home. Especially given your own involvement in the efforts to recover the remains of missing soldiers and preserve the Yorkshire Trench site, among others. I hope I say this right, as I especially do not want to offend you or any of you fellow inhabitants of the Ypres area in any way. I’m sure most if not everyone understands that no one said “There was a battlefield at Bellewaarde; lets build a fun park! We also understand that sometimes things just happen and when your whole neighborhood was once a gigantic battlefield the inhabitants view the situation differently than we outsiders. In the 1950’s an opportunity presented itself and the founders of Bellewaarde jumped on it and created a place for families to come and have a great time. Supper great and way to go, too bad hindsight shows that some of us would rather have that particular area as well as the area the Auto Route now cuts through preserved. Frankly I admire the efforts of all those people who returned to the battlefields after the Great War & WW2 and began rebuilding their farms, woods, homes, shops and towns right where they were before the war destroyed them. I personally find that one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen. In many places they have preserved the battlefields in a much better way than any government conservation effort could have. One of my favorite things to do is to tell visitors I take to Ypres that everything they see inside the town was totally destroyed during the war and the people of Ypres rebuild the town as close to the way it was before the war. Everyone who sees and understands this is simply and totally amazed by it. A most wonderful achievement for sure. Because I know the Somme battlefield better than any other place on the Western Front let me use the it as an example to better explain my feelings about progress and preservation. In the British sector of the old 1916 battlefield all the woods are in almost the exact same spots as they were at the time of the big push as are the villages and many of the farms. I can go there today and I can still easily see why and how these places played such a key role in the fighting. This is thanks in no small part to the people who came back and wouldn’t allow the war to completely change their way of life. Yes I would still like to be able to see the Y Sap mine crater but Locknagar is still there and that gives me a good idea as to what it looked like then (thanks Locknagar Association!). I accept it and move on. Maybe after I’ve made 10 million Euros I’ll come back, buy the place and dig it out again! This human tenacity to rebuild things as they were is why I’m a supporter of the plan to rebuild the World Trade Centers back almost like they were before the 9/11 attacks. For me it’s the best way to say to your attackers “Piss on you; despite all your horrific efforts to destroy my home, my family and my way of life you failed and I am back! ” Well I’ve done my best and hope I have said what I intended to say in such away as to get my view across with out offending you. Thank you for all you do and for all that your countrymen & women have done to remember those who fought and died in the Salient. All the best, Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcderms Posted 10 March , 2004 Share Posted 10 March , 2004 There is no greater monument to the dead than the living. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurel Sercu Posted 10 March , 2004 Share Posted 10 March , 2004 And that sums it up correctly... Jon, I couldn't agree more. (And the difference between Ypres and the Somme is that Ypres is a far more densely populated area than the Somme. Which was also a less densely populated area in the War itself.) Aurel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul guthrie Posted 10 March , 2004 Share Posted 10 March , 2004 And that sums it up correctly... Jon, I couldn't agree more. (And the difference between Ypres and the Somme is that Ypres is a far more densely populated area than the Somme. Which was also a less densely populated area in the War itself.) Aurel Right, which is why I can visualize the Somme as a battlefield so much better than the Salient though I love to visit both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff. Hobson Posted 22 March , 2004 Share Posted 22 March , 2004 Our great uncle Gabriel Townsend was killed on or very near the site of Bellewaarde Park, in September 1915. He was aged 17. Had he been alive I am sure he wouldn't mind the sound of happy (international) childrens voices there. -------------------- Chris Baker I was reminded of a poem, Mathew Copse, and the last verse ,when I read the above. Written by John William Streets dated June 1916,, he was K.I.A. 1st July 1916 in the attack on Serre. There by thr. fallen youth, where heroes lie, Close by each simple cross the flowers will spring , The bonne enfants will wander in Spring, And lovers dream those dreams that never die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkristof Posted 23 March , 2004 Share Posted 23 March , 2004 Didn't those men fought for the joy and the freedom of their children? I think the big WW1 buisness in Ypres, the fake trenches, the cyber museum, all the souvenir shops are worse! Or not? thx, kristof, living in the salient on Broodseinde ridge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CROONAERT Posted 24 March , 2004 Share Posted 24 March , 2004 Didn't those men fought for the joy and the freedom of their children? Exactly! I think that the Bellewaerde Park is a wonderful thing , and always have done for many years. It's not the mad "Blackpool Pleasure Beach" type of place anyway. You can wander round the paths in the quiter parts with the background of classical music playing softly over the tannoys and quite lose yourself in thought about what happened where. I know that I have on several occasions. Alternatively, you can just lighten up a little and enjoy exactly what it was that was being fought for. I believe that to be too sombre about the places that men fell can also be a mis-justice on their memories (as I was once told by a Somme veteran as I helped him climb down from a bar room table in Albert back in 1990! ) Dave. (PS. and also, where can you get a better view of the battlefields than on the "Screaming Eagle"?????) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert Heyvaert Posted 24 March , 2004 Share Posted 24 March , 2004 I have mixed feelings about this... When I was doing placement for my teaching degree in history I started one class by projecting a picture of the 'great plash' attracting in Bellewaerde park on the wall while pupils were coming in. When they had taken their seat I would change the slide to the well known 'wooden track through château wood' picture, which shows the utter devastation in roughly the same area as the Bellewaerde park. I din't intend to convict the park, but as a matter of showing contrasts, it was a very good case. The park grew organically, from the 1940-50's to what it became in the 1980's. It was established at the same time that people were still digging the battlefields for scrap iron and cupper to sell, just to make a decent living. Extra employment was greeted and nobody cared about the war. But what if somebody would buy a large piece of land on the battlefields today, with the intention to turn it into a fun park??? Every newspaper in the UK would scream murder and fire, to say it with a Flemish expression. Personally I have no problems with Bellewaerde park. I grew up with, and it is still the first thing that comes up in my mind when somebody mentiones Ypres. At primary school, we would visit the Bellewaerde park with our class in the morning, and than the trench of death, the Yzer tower and the menin gate in the afternoon. Quite frankly, at that time I couldn't care less about all the first world war stuff. We all just wished we could have stayed in the park all day... well, interests change over time I guess... regards, Bert. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest July1 Posted 31 March , 2004 Share Posted 31 March , 2004 When you visit Hooghe cemetary, the museum or just stroll around the park, on a nice summer day, with your children at your side, and you hear other children having fun in the park, and reflect that to the events in 1914-1918, then you don't really mind the park at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkristof Posted 31 March , 2004 Share Posted 31 March , 2004 i am glad to read this. I have much bigger problems with the attraction / cyber "park" in the cloth hall of Ypres. Attraction park WW1: IFF "Shall we play?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert Heyvaert Posted 1 April , 2004 Share Posted 1 April , 2004 hello Kristof, Nice to see more Belgian members on the forum! I tend to disagree with you on IFF. Ok, it is a modern museum that doesn't focus on material culture. Instead it focusses on people's life stories. It is a different concept. If you see it in an international museum context, the museum is very innovative and amongst the top of recent musea in Europe. It is also focused on a particular group of people, schoolchildren and people who have no prior knowledge of WW1. I spoke to alot of such people and visited the museum twice with a classgroup. They tended to be quite positive. People who are into first world war a bit deeper don't really seem to enjoy it. But you have to admit that it brought a lot of people to Ypres and that it triggered interest in WW1. Personally I think the museum was the impuls Ypres needed to put itself back on the touristical landmap. Maybe the new museum in Passchendale can be a welcome contribution to show the material culture of the first world war as well? The ideas you spoke about in your other posts looked very promising! cheers, Bert. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egbert Posted 1 April , 2004 Share Posted 1 April , 2004 kristof, I see it absolutely like you!! The concept of "plug and play" in IFF addresses more the "peace activist". No wonder with this curator...but this is another story that died for me with the curator "initiated' demise of former WFA-forum (old Pals/insiders know what I mean). I don't comment more than that - IFF is no alternative, I really hope Passendale and Bayernwald will make it instead! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkristof Posted 1 April , 2004 Share Posted 1 April , 2004 Passchendaele 1917 memorial museum in Zonnebeke will be different. It will show a lot of original items and it will tell chronologicly the story of the salient from 1914 untill 1918. There will be a few "experiences"too: a remade dug out + a trench (inside the museum). Bert, I know very well hos it is to visit IFF with school groups. I am a teacher myself! i can tell you this, if you have a big group +20 people the 'high tech' misses its aim. The computers often don't react on the cards + there are to less computers to let everybody reed what 'his personalised story' tells. If you can't use the computers, you just can watch pics + a few items. I am use to give some extra info on the things kids see. Last time i did that in the museum one of the "guards" there asked me friendly to be quit. Guiding is not necessary here he told me! I don't say a pile of collectables under dust in an old museum (i call no names) is much better, but I think there is need to a museum who shows items, collectables + gives you good simple info on ww1 + let you think about ww1. greets, kristof Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
salientpoints Posted 1 April , 2004 Share Posted 1 April , 2004 I see it absolutely like you!! The concept of "plug and play" in IFF addresses more the "peace activist". No wonder with this curator... I don't really have a problem with either as I will always visit everything I can, but I am not correct in saying I have read that particularly in Western Europe everything about war & remembrance now comes under the banner 'peace park' - especially if you want to get EU funding? Ryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkristof Posted 1 April , 2004 Share Posted 1 April , 2004 I don't really have a problem with either as I will always visit everything I can, but I am not correct in saying I have read that particularly in Western Europe everything about war & remembrance now comes under the banner 'peace park' - especially if you want to get EU funding? Ryan Indeed Ryan, peace, peace, peace "don't mention the war" ! Ypres even wanted to change street names as "Haig lane, Plumer lane,..." to something like Peace lane and brotherhood street. I don't know if they are still planning this, but it is typical.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
salientpoints Posted 1 April , 2004 Share Posted 1 April , 2004 Ypres even wanted to change street names as "Haig lane, Plumer lane,..." to something like Peace lane and brotherhood street As suspected... some pen pusher in Brussels no doubt with some kind of economics degree ! Although we must move with the times we must also cherish and embrace our history. Everyone knows it cannot be changed and we should learn from it, not try to rewrite it (yeah and how long has this been a repetitive topic!). I myself would love to live in a road with a name with such heritage I noticed a new post from Paul that follows on nicely from this issue on modern museums to what I see as the evolution into 'peace parks' to cater for the 'playstation generation' - http://1914-1918.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=12078&hl= Ryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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