The Somme

[Patrick H]

I know this[/b] has come up during other discussions but I wanted to vent my anger and frustration at what is hapening. I recently visited with my nephew and as it was his first visit we visited some of the more well known places. I left with a real sense of disappointment and wondering if I will ever bother to go back.

First Newfoundland Park. Wire up everywhere stopping us going anywhere. All we could visit was the Caribou and the Danger Tree. Could not walk anywhere else. You could visit the cemeteries by going out the exit and down the road. I used to be able to walk across No Mans Land to the German lines - not any more. When I enquired at the new Visitors Centre (and why do we need a visiotsa Center at every place?) I ws told it was down to Health & Safety.

Second to Butte de Wallencourt Closed due to Health & Safety open again the next day, it wasn't nor the day after that

Next to the Albert Underground Museum I read on this forum that improvements had been made. I couldn't see any and didnt really feel the visit was worth it.

On the way home to Vimy Ridge 7 coaches in the car park and a canadian student making far more noise shouting at the kids than the kids who were very well behaved. For Gods sake they are concrete trenches, what harm were the kids doing, certainly far more reverential than an attendant shouting at the top of her voice.

Maybe I have been too many times or getting too cynical or maybe its an age thing but the sense of wonderment, and sheer awe is no longer there, where so many places have been turned into a theme park.

Still my nephew loved the visit and he is only 11. He also though all the French people we met "really kind"

What do you think

Patrick

[John_Hartley]

I agree with your nephew.

I'd also suggest, as you compare "The Somme" with a theme park, that you don't get to go to many theme parks.

John

[montbrehain]

As you rightly mentioned this has been discussed before. I dont want to go over old ground again, But I thank god /heavens /lucky star that I started visiting when I did . Each visit since has left me more and more disillusioned/jealous. The lights are going on again all over the western front we shall not see................

[burlington]

I would not necessarity disagree with your comments (I don't go to theme parks!!!) BUT there are so many peaceful, evocative places, and which are probably just as informative for your nephew.

Martin

[MartinWills]

I've long thought that much of the western front has become a "tourist trap". None the less, whilst the "famous" places are often crowded you can still search out the less well known and less visited places and still gain much pleasure from visiting secluded spots and places where you can be on your own. If anything we should take the metaphorical hint and visit the less well peoped and visited places, or, heaven forbid, places not on the Western Front. That said, if you think that the coaches at Tyne Cot or Newfoundland park are to much of a crowd, you should visit the Nek and 57th Regiment memorial/cemetery at Anzac on a busy day - the Somme seems quiet in comparison.

As for the Butte de Warlencourt, the restrictions there probably reflect the problems that its British owners have in maintaiing and preserving it such that it is reasonably safe and accessible to visitors.

[bmac]

I don't know. Many years ago, and it is many years ago, there was only room for about 3 cars at Newfoundland Memorial Park and you could walk anywhere great BUT there was nowhere to stay, nowhere to get lunch or dinner, nowhere, except a nearby tree, to have a pee. And when you got home there was no one to talk to about what you'd seen, no one who could answer your questions, ceratinly nowhere like HERE.

Well, now all of those things have changed and, yes, there is a price to pay. That price includes safeguarding precious places like Newfoundland which means restricting access. But the vast majority of the Somme is untouched, quiet, evocative. But, on the other hand I can now stay in Auchonvillers and be assured of a decent lunch and a loo. Always someone to chat with and a good place to stay. On balance, the price for this progress has been a small one IMHO.

[MartinWills]

Absolutely, Bill, the price is also the price of remembrance and the continuation of remembrance. Now that we have effectively moved beyond the real scope of Living Memory we should be proud that we still remember.

[T8HANTS]

For me the Great War exists on film, photograph, and in written record. When I visit the Somme I see farmland and memorials. When I went to Verdun it was trees and undulations which I knew were shell hole, but could no longer be called shell holes.

Even to stand at the Serre road, and know there are undiscovered remains within yards of you, cannot for me conjure up the war, nor should it. If the battlefield had been left exactly as the last Tommy or Landser left it, without one piece of fragment being removed, it would still change. We view it as it is today, our grandchildren will have a different experience, as we do from our ancestors who were there.

Gareth

[Peter Bennett]

First Newfoundland Park. Wire up everywhere stopping us going anywhere. All we could visit was the Caribou and the Danger Tree. Could not walk anywhere else. You could visit the cemeteries by going out the exit and down the road. I used to be able to walk across No Mans Land to the German lines - not any more. When I enquired at the new Visitors Centre (and why do we need a visitor Center at every place?) I was told it was down to Health & Safety.

Pardon me for being dim, but how can you get to "Y" Ravine Cemetery unless you go down past the Danger Tree?

[Jack Sheldon]

Round the outside of the Memorial past the Director's house and in the gate just before the cemetery.

Jack

[Patrick H]

Many thanks for all your comments, most of which I agree with. I suppose my sense of disapointment is that is so different from 20 years ago when I made my first visit. I recall visiting Newfoundland Park researching the Essex who went over the top with the Newfoundlers, and the sense of being in a place of such tremendous poignancy. Being able to make your own way around totally alone, with no guided paths, signs and notices, visitors centers etc. It was as if you could really sense what had gone on there.

Of course, there are many other places to go, but when you are taking someone who has never been before then places like Newfoundland Park are an obvious choice.

as for Theme Parks, yes Mr Hartley I did used to go to such but I am an incredible jinx and every ride I go on breaks down On a visit to eurodisney with my family the first 3 big rides we went on broke down.. I was banned from the fourth. However, I was alluding to what were places of quiet pilgrimage now being noisy, touristy and soon I daresay we will have rides to enable us to "share the experience"

I am not complaining about the coachloads of kids there, as I am all for the younger generation learning about their history, and have taken groups of teenagers there myself on several occasions. Its just a bit of a shock to arrive at a place and see 7 coaches and 20 cars parked there.

Ah well, until my next visit, by then I will have gotten over it

Patrick

[John_Hartley]

However, I was alluding to what were places of quiet pilgrimage now being noisy, touristy and soon I daresay we will have rides to enable us to "share the experience"

I realised that.

I simply don't see it the way you do.

It seems most odd to take a stance that, at the same time, as making "Newfoundland Park an obvious choice" for you to take a first time visitor, to complain that other folk are doing the same.

But then what do I know, I've only been a battlefield tourist for a handful of years and only been to Newfoundland Park once.

John

[Alan Tucker]

Re Newfoundland Park I don't think the first poster understands what lots of human feet can do to a site in terms of erosion. The restrictions are essential to preserve it. Health and safety is merely an excuse.

[paul guthrie]

Re Newfoundland Park I don't think the first poster understands what lots of human feet can do to a site in terms of erosion. The restrictions are essential to preserve it. Health and safety is merely an excuse.

So true, the trenches would soon dissapear w/o the reestrictions, were erodong badly with free access.

[24463988]

I wanted to start battlefield over twenty years ago, but had no likeminded friends ( motorsport and football ruled). So, by the time I started, just four years ago; I was bound to face a mixture of joy and disappointment with some locations. It is interesting to see how things change year on year at some locations, but agree that the best thing to do is get off the beaten track when possible. For me this is all a journey of discovery and I am just happy to get there. I can't properly explain why I HAVE to do it. Personally, I would have loved to see Newfoundland Mem Park when there were no loos, or fences - but there needs to be a balance. My mrs would never have used a bush for a loo. But it's easier for blokes. I was at the Trench of Bayonettes at Verdun last summer, it was still amazing just to be there , but to have seen it years ago would have been special. My only comparison, if you don't mind me mentioning it, was to see Arromanches in Normandy in 1975 and then see it again in 2003. It's amazing what tourism money and anniversaries can do.

[ianw]

I find the battlefields remarkably unchanged in essence since I started visiting 16 years ago - I too wish I had started much earlier but they are still quiet magical evocative places if you make a small effort to get off the beaten track. As for the crowds at the main veues, well I welcome them, and the consequent boost to Remembrance.

I just love to see the wreaths laid by several generations of families making trips that could not have been dreamed off 70 years ago.

[Tom Morgan]

In some ways the battlefields are like anything else you have had a long-standing interest in - you always perceive that you lived through a Golden Age, and you miss it.

Tom

[kebabking]

Life goes on and time changes everything.

Having not visited The Somme I feel ill equiped to comment however

The main thrust of the arguement appears to be commercialization of the battle fields.

Is it not better to attract a wide audience than to pander to a small number of afficanados

I have visited Ypres. Should that have been left as rubble,was the rebuilding sacrilege.

Should Coventry have been rebuilt after the 2nd WW.

My grandfather died in 1980 aged 80 and told me he was grateful to have lived whilst he did because the advances of the 20th century were hard for him to accept.How would he have coped since then?

As I stated I have not visited The Somme but I have visited Tyne Cott. I defie anyone ,young or old not to be moved by their visit there. Are a few bumps and lumps in the ground so vital for people to be educated or remember.

[Sly]

Hello,

Things are always moving, and battlefields too: because of time, tourism, politics, money, interest, erosion... there's many, many reasons.

But changes are not bad, they are absolutly necessary.

I am sure in a few years you will cannot walk in the Newfoundland Park, and everybody will approve that. However in the meantime you'll can visit other new sites, new museums, etc...

Remember that many things were not existing a couple of years ago: the Trenches at Thiepval wood, Historial museum at Péronne is just 15 years old, battlefield tours companies, and soon there will be new sites to see on the french battlefields of the Somme, and others...

I am living in the battelfields since a long time...

regards,

Sly

[TD60]

For myself I like when there is a visitor center to explain what happens there.

It is a good introduction or conclusion of a visit.

some panels like at the entry of Cabaret rouge cemetery are good explanations also.

It gives ideas about to which events are linked the soldiers in the cemetery.

On the other hand I like also battlefields without modern signs.

S

In fact there are so many that you can select the way you prefer visit the WW1 fields