Strange Occurrences on the Western Front

[Rodge Dowson]

Ian, I will of course keep all posted with any developments as and when.....

Rodge

[uncle bill]

I agree with Ian. The enigmatic posts telling of things that cannot be mentioned have left me wanting to know more. I also agree with Ian that woods have their own mystique and any wood, regardless of its history is a scary place.

[Bert Heyvaert]

I wanted to go into Memetz wood, it was on my list of things I wanted to do.

But I could only stand an look from the Dragon, then drive off to my next item of interest.

Heard the story of Bulgles being played from within the wood from a first rate witness, and an even more sinister tale I dont want to put here.

Jonn Craven

On the subject of Bugles being heard in woods on the Somme-battlefields.

This might be a silly remark, but my neigbour uses to practice his bugle in a nearby wood, cause his wife can't stand it at home...

Bert.

[ianw]

Bert,

A not unreasonable explanation of the sound of bugles in woods. Is there a worse noise than a badly played bugle ? Brings back memories of a number of "Last Posts" massacred by amateur buglers.

My Grandad used to say that if the first call of the day was badly played , the Colonel and the entire regiment were out of sorts for the rest of the day.

[christine liava'a]

Is there a worse noise than a badly played bugle ?

Yes, bagpipe practice and a child learning a violin

[Alison Arnold]

and a child learning a violin

And whats wrong with a child learning to play the violin? No don't answer that I have the headaches to prove it!!

In answer to the threads question I have not yet ventured to the battlefields. In agreement with everyone else I feel welcome and safe in the cemetaries in this country

Regards

Ali

[ianw]

The moment I posted that query about bugles, I knew the arrival of bagpipes would only be a matter of time !

[garyem1]

My 13 year old plays the piano, she is very good but after 6 years my ears are shot.

[Fleur]

I have some inexplicable photographs and negatives within a sequence I took in Gommecourt Wood about ten years ago.

Gynn,

You might want to take a look at this website re. your piccies.

http://www.ghoststudy.com/gallery.html

This guy will look at your pics and try to give you a rational explanation (should there be one)

I LOVE stuff like this - the mystery of it all and the possibility of there being paranormal activity caught by the magic lens.

I'd love to know more about your pictures - only if you want to share your story - please feel free to mail me off forum

Spooky Fleur

[Dragon]

Can I clarify, please?

I didn't say they were ghost pictures, I said that we couldn't explain them and because they were inexplicable, they were (are) chilling. There's nothing sensational, just something we can't explain rationally or analytically.

I mentioned them because a previous contributor had mentioned the eerie effect of woods, and my photos were taken in and near the wood at Gommecourt. Thus my experience seemed relevant.

I'm sorry to disappoint, but I decline to publish anything on the internet for the entire world to see, borrow, adapt, alter or sensationalise out of my control and that applies to both my writing and my photos. Anyway, I intend to preserve the experience to use in my own writing, so I'll let you know when to go to Waterstones.

The Mean and Secretive Gwyn

PS Thank you for the link! I will investigate it, then save it for a dark and stormy night when I am all alone in the house, there's a dense fog outside, the phone lines are down, there's been a power cut and there is the sound like Jacob Marley's chains in the loft. Oh and my dented helmet which came from High Wood (legitimately) is vibrating, glowing and about to crash down off its perch...

[ianw]

Well Gwyn, having considerably whetted our collective appetite, you will have a captive audience when you eventually decide to commit these mysteries to print !

[Mark Hone]

I visited my great-uncle's grave at St Souplet Cemetery in 1988 on a wonderful WFA 'Victory' tour. During the tour I had chummed up with Frank Gardiner, a member of the Birmingham Branch, a lovely chap I had never met before. We walked over to my great-uncle's grave and lo and behold he is buried next to another Royal Warwick called Gardiner, same battalion, killed on the same day. No relation, as far as Frank was aware but I still have a photo of Hone and Gardiner standing behind Hone and Gardiner.

Of course we always remember occasional coincidences and ignore the thousands of non-coincidental events we encounter every day but still...

A rather macabre coincidence that my wife noticed on our first visit to Railway Chateau Cemetery near Ieper the other week was a joint headstone to soldiers called 'Dance' and 'Death'. Surely not someone's idea of a grim jest?

[paul guthrie]

Mark the 2d man of 30 named Death on CWGC site is A Death, RGA , November 16, 1914. He is buried in Railway Chateau Cemetery. Will look at SDGW and edit this. He is Arthur Death, DOW, born and enlisted Great Yarmouth. Poor Arthur, what an unfortunate name, then he was killed along with nearly ten million others.

[CROONAERT]

I think it's a great name, Paul. (derives from the French, I believe and can sometimes be found in it's original form - "de Ath"). I once knew a medical man with this name who took great delight in introducing himself as "Dr. Death"!

Dave.

[John_Hartley]

a dark and stormy night when I am all alone in the house, there's a dense fog outside, the phone lines are down, there's been a power cut and there is the sound like Jacob Marley's chains in the loft.

At least no noise from take-offs from Manchester Airport, I suppose

[Rodge Dowson]

I am starting in ernest now with research into things that are 'Not all quiet on the Western Front', if I get enough material I will try and get the stories together for publication. If anyone would like to contirbute stories of their own experiences with strange events on the battlefields please would they write to;

Rodge Dowson, 1, PINFOLD COTTAGE, HIGH ST., NAWTON, NORTH YORKSHIRE, YO62 7TS.

I am also looking for photos relative to the subject and exact information as to times, location, conditions - the time of year etc. when the event or experience took place. I think this type of material put together properly could make very interesting reading.

Many Thanks

Rodge

[Dragon]

At least no noise from take-offs from Manchester Airport, I suppose

Noise? Wot noise?

John, this is a deadly secret, but - Runway Two was specifically routed so it wouldn't disturb my psychic zone.

Gwyn

PS Which Indian restaurant?

[Mark Hone]

Dear Rodge,

Just a quick word of warning if you are planning to include any stories of war in the air. There is a chap knocking about who has written a number of books on this sort of thing and, in the past, has allegedly sent dire warnings to other writers invoking breach of copyright and threatening legal action. Whilst looking into the boys of our school who died serving with Bomber Command in the Second World War a fellow researcher sent me an example of this person's rather idiosyncratic style of communication. I had actually encountered some of his books. As far as I know he never carries out his threats (and they seemed pretty odd to me) but forewarned is forearmed.

[Muerrisch]

I know its a free country and an informed web-site, but I do wish I had not, belatedly, bothered to look at this thread. It really is a bit off-topic. I just hope I have not given it new life.

Come on folks ..... I have just received from a Pal a photo of the grave of Captain RMJ French RWF, a beautiful non-standard stone in the CWGC plot at Bournemouth. And yes, knowing his dreadful fate, I became very emotional.

The only legitimate test for the various phenomena/feelings/dreads would be to dump totally unknowledgeable people in these places, blindfold or with back to cemetery. Of course we get emotional .... I have shed more tears on battlefields, in cemeteries and in the PRO than a stiff upper lip Brit. male should ever confess to.

Surely if we were not emotionally involved, we would be interested in underwater basket weaving or whatever?

And I shall not be asking for new posts to be notified.

[ianw]

Given that this is one of the most viewed threads ever, it would seem that many people do not share LB1418's view that it is off-topic at all. I am profoundly agnostic on the issue but still find it fascinating. The profoundly sceptical are entitled to their opinion as well.

I do not wish "off the wall" topics linked to the Great War excluded from this site. The "Chit-Chat" section is an obvious place to post this type of subject and there are plenty of other sections for more serious practical research questions. Why do certain people feel it in any way beneficial to attempt to censor and limit issues discussed ? If you don't like the contents/subject of a thread then you are free to ignore it.

Interestingly after his initial huffing and puffing , LB1418 then goes on in paradoxically constructive vein to suggest an interesting psychic "blind test" experiment , which I suspect may have already been undertaken , but would be interesting to arrange again.

Thanks LB1418 for giving me reason to put this thread at the top of the list again . Your fears were justified !

[Fleur]

Interestingly after his initial huffing and puffing , LB1418 then goes on in paradoxically constructive vein to suggest an interesting psychic "blind test" experiment , which I suspect may have already been undertaken , but would be interesting to arrange again.

LB1818 - humpf! I don't understand your 'off topic' approach to this subject. It is very much 'on topic' as we are discussing strange / unexplainable phenomena felt/seen/experienced at sites of activitie during the Great War. I am personaly a bit offended at your narrow minded attitude and that you have been so negative when so many of us have shown an interest in this topic thread. As Ian W has so succinctly put it - if you don't like what you read then move on and ignore the thread!

There, I've said it - let that ne the end!

Ian - I'd be up for blind testing - I think it would be an excellent excercise

I wonder if anyone has results from previous tests (if any have been done. Some how I can't imagine that there wouldn't have been)?

Fleur

[ianw]

Fleur,

I seem to recall in a previous thread on this subject that it was reported that a medium was taken to some Western Front locations with little result.

The problem would be taking any supposed medium or psychic there without their immediately twigging where in the world they were and acting accordingly. Perhaps we could suggest the idea to Channel 4. They have previously produced hours of "Popular History" television on much less ! With their resources they could "parachute" the medium in by helicopter.

[Fleur]

Fleur,

I seem to recall in a previous thread on this subject that it was reported that a medium was taken to some Western Front locations with little result.

The problem would be taking any supposed medium or psychic there without their immediately twigging where in the world they were and acting accordingly. Perhaps we could suggest the idea to Channel 4. They have previously produced hours of "Popular History" television on much less ! With their resources they could "parachute" the medium in by helicopter.

It doesn't surprise me that a medium would come up with generic info - I think that it really would have to be a completely blind test - tinted windows in cars, blind folding where neccessary - complete isolation from the surrounding environment and then being taken to an area with no decernable features but that had seen action and then see what they come up with folllowing complete sensory deprevation.

UK living have just started a series starring Jane Goldman (Jonathon Ross' wife) where she is investigating psychics and mediums etc. As a sceptic she makes an excellent choice of presenter as she askes all the right questions and doesn't let the people she is interviewing bluff her.

I thin the Channel 4 parachuting Psychic idea is excellent - perhaps they could launch that pillock Colin Fry http://www.livingtv.co.uk/6ixthsense/index.html first - perhaps they could see just how good his psychic abilities are by only packing the reserve chute

*evil chuckle*

Fleur

[Tom Morgan]

I seem to recall in a previous thread on this subject that it was reported that a medium was taken to some Western Front locations with little result.

This was a UK Discovery Channel programme in which I was asked to take a professional medium to the Somme and comment on the historical accuracy of the messages he was getting "from the other side."

Fleur is quite right, of course. The medium knew that he was in the Somme battlefields. He knew for weeks before hand that he would be going. At the end of it all I remained unconvinced. (Great evening meals though.)

"It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any  person appearing after death.  All argument is against it: but all belief is for it."

Dr. Johnson

[Fleur]

I seem to recall in a previous thread on this subject that it was reported that a medium was taken to some Western Front locations with little result.

Fleur is quite right, of course. The medium knew that he was in the Somme battlefields. He knew for weeks before hand that he would be going. At the end of it all I remained unconvinced. (Great evening meals though.)

"It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any  person appearing after death.  All argument is against it: but all belief is for it."

Dr. Johnson

That is such a shame / sham!

Fancy letting the person know that they were to be taken to the Somme, that makes a bit of a farce of the whole excercise don't you think?

That you got some decent scran out of it must have been a bonus

Why bother to go to all that effort to get you and a 'psychic' out there if the test was never going to be conducted under controlled conditions?

Makes me want to sort it all out myself and get the thing done and dusted, once and for all, good and proper!

Ho Hum, I suppose that the TV company wanted something on tape rather than a mystified psychic picking up sweet FA and causing embarresment - also if you got footage of some one saying they can feel termoil and terror etc. etc. that then justifies the money spent I suppose.

Fleur