Thiepval Visit

[chrisclare]

I went, for the first time, to the Somme last week for a breakneck tour of the area north of the main Albert-Bapaume road and would like to relate my experience to the forum.

After overnighting in Amiens I drove on Thursday morning along the main Albert to Bapaume road, stopping various times to take in the surroundings, and after entering Pozieres turned left following the signs for the memorial to the missing at Theipval.

Upon turning left I pulled behind a German plated camper van and proceeded to follow it towards my destination past moo-cow farm into the hamlet and left towards Theipval. Now, at this moment several thoughts passed through my mind: Why would a German visit Theipval? How must he feel? What would we say to each other if the opportunity arose to converse? All was soon to be revealed.

Now, I should at this point say that my car is Spanish plated and consequently the German camper van driver could safely assume that I was not English. After parking next to each other and getting out of our respective vechicals I was surprised to note that the driver was not the middle-aged, bespectacled, respectable German that I had imagined but instead a young skinheaded tatooed "lad" accompanied my similarly dressed girlfriend and dog. No conversation ensued and leaving the only other visitor at that moment in the carpark I walked towards the memorial, forgetting the German as the immense sight of the memorial came fully into view.

Ones feelings when visiting such memorials are very personal and profoundly moving and mine were interupted some 5 mins later by the sound of laughing and a barking dog.

What should I do?

Ask them to show a little respect? Drag them back to the car park and give them a "bloody good seeing to"?

I did neither.

Instead, I gave them the typical British dissaproving stare before walking back to my car and driving on to the Ulster memorial. Later that night, back in Amiens, I felt ashamed of my behaviour. I should have done or said something, not for me or for the German but for them.

It seems that both myself and the other visitor that Thursday morning both need to learn the meaning of respest. My lesson has been learned.

[BlackSeptember1918]

Chris

I think your being a little hard on yourself , and on the German couple you encountered . You can only control your own thoughts in places of rememberance . You can neither stop people ( or children ) laughing or dogs barking ( beleive me I tried to stop my hounds barking enough to know ) . I think it's ironic to imagine a German and Englishman argueing or worse , fist fighting at a place to remember those who died .

My method would have been to go off to the Irish memorial and then return after the German couple had left the area if I wanted silence .

These people were German , but they could have easily been Brits , or Aussies , or French , or any nationality . Some places mean more to one person , than to others . I'm sure they meant no harm . They were just on holidays seeing the sights . Now if you said they got spray cans out and started to paint there names on the memorial , now then it's time to roll up the sleeves and give it your best shot , and as my old man always taught me , if you end up looking like a truck hit you and the other guy walks away , well you can still hold your head up , cause you did what was right .

I can understand your thoughts mate , but I think by doing nothing , you actually did the best and most noble thing .

Phil.

[egbert]

Ones feelings when visiting such memorials are very personal and profoundly moving and mine were interupted some 5 mins later by the sound of laughing and a barking dog.

Chris,

There is always two sides of a story: when I visited Thiepval last September with my son and a famous messenger dog, a tour-bus with UK plates parked in next to our German plated car (although I came from the US; pretty good similarity to your situation right?). Guess what: the messenger dog was kept totally silence (good K-9 training ) to observe the rules, but the students, hell they made noise -they never stopped yelling/running , not even at the monument! It disturbed us a lot, but we survived the situation in dignity

[John_Hartley]

Chris

I suppose the couple had their reasons for visiting Thiepval. I have also been known to laugh and joke with my companion when on battlefield visits - even in cemetaries. I don't find it disrespectful.

Last time I was at Thiepval, it was packed. mainly with British and Dutch school students. They were noisy in the way that groups of young people can. You were fortunate in finding it so quiet and with many parts for peaceful contemplation.

By the by, seeing as you didnt speak, how do you know the couple were German. Was it relevent?

John

[Dragon]

I’m not sure of the relevance of nationality here. You were in a Spanish plated car, he was in a German plated car, I’ve driven round parts of France in a Swiss car, and none of it means that you were Spanish, he was German or I am Swiss. In fact it almost sounds as if the objection to the perceived noise was that the couple were German and disrespectful of the British memorial. Particularly so because they didn't fit a visual stereotype.

I'm a bit worried now about what to wear for my next visit, to be respectable. I have some cool glasses, so that's ok, but do I wear a skirt and tie my hair up nicely? What about my tattoos? They are transfers, actually, but am I more respectable when I wash them off and and Undesirable if I don't? Does it matter where they are? Is there a notice about these things? Are there Rules?

In my opinion there are different sorts of noise. I have been known to talk to my partner while at Thiepval, not in a whisper either, as a way of conveying information. I’ve been there several times when there have been parties of school students, of differing nationalities. Some parties are clearly well prepared and reflective; they share information quietly and thoughtfully with their accompanying adults and each other; some, I’ve seen the staff head off down the field for a smoke leaving the kids without any direction or purpose in wandering round an edifice with lots of levels and hidey holes. Either way I wouldn’t expect the students to be completely silent, but one is a productive sort of noise and the other is the natural noise of young people adrift in a situation and place they can’t read, and probably bored too. Yes, I find the latter annoying, but I find it hard to blame the students if they have no idea what they are there for and the adults have abandoned them.

Acting the cross old fogey and glaring disapprovingly isn’t me, partly because I’m neither old nor a fogey, partly because it’s ineffective and partly because I don’t usually see myself as anyone’s behaviour police or the guardian of heritage.

If the sound of a couple quietly talking or occasionally laughing, and their dog doing what dogs sometimes do, ie barking, was truly intolerable, I think I would have gone for a walk down the field or round towards the village, or concentrated on composing photos until the nuisance had passed. It’s not so hard to find somewhere to suit one’s mood in that region.

Gwyn

[paul guthrie]

I saw some Greman teens cutting up at Lochnagar some 7 years ago. It pissed me off but I kept my mouth shut and would do so again. Vandalism would cause me to go off though.

Another time I saw Paul Reed go off pretty good on a British school teacher whose students were trampling plowed ground with crops. I heartily agreed and the guy was pretty embarassed.

And a retired RAF man chastised me for wearing a cap in a cemetery; he didn't even know the correct words to the exhortation either. Maybe he was right but I don't think so, I never show disrespect to these men, just avoiding sun burn.

[ianw]

I think the conflicts of the last century (and those of the current one) should teach us tolerance if nothing else . Turn the other cheek and walk the other way. Find you own solitude and quiet if this is how you choose to remember.

All types of humanity visit the western Front , just as all types served there.

[KIRKY]

I visited Vimy in October with a local French family and found a coach of school kids running all over the restricted areas and jumping over the trenches .

I was about to apologize for the "english attitude" only to find they were all french! The teachers totally ignored the behaviour. I was very sad at the lack of respect.

[chrisclare]

Acting the cross old fogey and glaring disapprovingly isn’t me, partly because I’m neither old nor a fogey, partly because it’s ineffective and partly because I don’t usually see myself as anyone’s behaviour police or the guardian of heritage.

By the by, seeing as you didnt speak, how do you know the couple were German. Was it relevent?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nationality is of course irrelevent and I didn´t know that they were German, I just assumed it. I guess my feelings were based on the culmination of my assumption of their nationality, their appearanca AND their conduct.

I recognise my error.

I do not consider myself anyone´s "behaviour police" or "guardian of heritage",

but simply believe that there are unwritten codes of conduct appropriate to visiting such places as Thiepval.

Times are indeed changing. This 39 year old,married with two young kids, "cross old fogey" is off to grow a poneytail and buy a cool pair of raybans.

[Dragon]

I don’t understand why nationality, appearance (hair length, tattoos, body piercings), dress, visual impairment, age, gender, marital status, or evidence of fertility has anything to do with a discussion about visitors to Thiepval or similar places.

Campervan Couple didn’t need to go to Thiepval. Presumably there are hotspots they could have tracked down if they wanted excitement. I assume they went from choice and had personal reasons for going there.

When they were there, they talked quietly, they were heard to laugh occasionally and their dog barked. Why is that wrong?

No-one but the two people knows what they took away emotionally from their visit for reflection and contemplation later on. We don’t even know whether one or both had some sort of impairment which might have made it impossible for them to read the significance of the situation. One day I hope to take an autistic person there. He will laugh there, and laugh loudly too, or screech. It doesn’t mean he won’t take something from his visit, in his terms, or that he should be glowered at, or barred.

I can’t concede the concept of a five hundred kilometre No Smile Zone along the Western Front, which is where sometimes some of the judgmental discussions about ‘respect’ lead to.

Gwyn

[Jon Miller]

I was at Thiepval a couple of weeks ago. At the time in question, there was an intriguing sky which I thought might make for a special photo - though I was probably wrong, on closer inspection. However, on arrival at the carpark, I found myself next to a coachful of English schoolchildren. They then began to disembark, all fifty of them. My reaction was to wait until they were clear of the coach, and then turn my car and drive off. This wasn't a fit of pique; I knew that the quiet ambience I prefer would not now settle around the monument, nor would I get a clear picture! And anyway, it was their only chance of visiting the monument, I am fortunate to have many opportunities.

How far one carries respect is one of those questions that has a different answer for everyone. I am sure that if I was travelling along the Western Front with a friend, I would be chatting freely, in cemeteries or not, though hopefully not enough to offend anyone else - though how many times does one visit a cemetery at the same time as another party? I have to admit to one slightly odd characteristic of mine here - I don't like playing CDs in the car when I am touring the battlefields. I'm not a compulsive music player even while driving at home, but this is an instance where the respect thing kicks in - I feel as if it is disrespectful to have modern music playing; possibly it's because I spend most of the time in my own thoughts, and wonderful though it is to have T Rex blaring out of the speakers, it just doesn't seem to fit in with Great War contemplation. But each to his own!

[sunflower]

I was at Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Park very recently on my second visit there.

There was a group of French schoolchildren who were extremely noisy and at one point around three of them were jumping on each other and ended up rolling about the grass just as I was walking past. Now these were not young kids but 15 or 16 year olds.

You could hear their high pitched squealing throughout the park. Where was the teacher? She was there alright but seemed oblivous. I know I should have said something as I felt really angry about the total lack of disrespect...but I didn't and felt annoyed that I didn't speak up.

I have seen well behaved children at Tyne Cot, Thiepval, Sheffield Memorial Park and badly behaved ones at Hill 62 and Newfoundland Park. It does not matter about nationality, you can get misbehaviour from any child that is allowed to rampage freely.

There are many, many school trips to the Great War battlefields and I would encourage that and for the most part, they are well behaved. Teachers need to be responsible and make sure that they realise that the whole place is a cemetary and so many of all nations lost so much - the least they can do is keep their pupils reasonably quiet... (or try at least!)

sunflower

[Tom Morgan]

I have seen well behaved children at Tyne Cot, Thiepval, Sheffield Memorial Park and badly behaved ones at Hill 62 and Newfoundland Park. It does not matter about nationality, you can get misbehaviour from any child that is allowed to rampage freely.

Absolutely right.

I find that young people are actually very eager not to upset other visitors and will usually go to great lengths to make sure that their behaviour is respectful and appropriate - provided you tell them what is expected of them. It isn't their fault that they don't automatically know these days.

For example - attendance at church isn't part of normal life for many people these days, so I tell student groups that it's the done thing for gentlemen to remove their hats when entering St. George's. I've never had the slightest negative reaction to this.

Most students don't know that Newfoundland Memorial park is the last resting place of several hundreds of soldiers, and not just in the cemeteries contained within the park. I mention that some visitors will perhaps have a strong personal reason for visiting and I invite the students to make sure that they do nothing to disturb that quiet, elderly couple who might be at the culmination of their once-in-a-lifetime trip to visit the spot where Grandfather died and where - somewhere - he may still be lying, undiscovered.

I tell them that it isn't the done thing to climb on the cross at Tyne Cot, and if they see other people doing it, well - they just don't know any better.

Never had a problem with any "yoof attitude" in respect to this kind of things. Young people are eager to play their part in Remembrance, I find. But they won't automatically know what's expected of them and if the adults in charge don't know either, then they have no chance.

Tom

[ianw]

Quite agree Tom. Its a question of " Education , Education , Education" because we all know the low knowledge base that most of our kids start with. They are also young - I dimly remember and envy this state ! They are full of energy and high spirits - and also very much closer to the age of many of the casualties than the average adult visitor. So let's cut them a bit of slack.