Bairnsfather Xmas truce site

[Matt Dixon]

Watching a programme through a miasma of turkey and alcohol on the Xmas truce and it showed a cross supposedly on the site Bairnsfather had the Xmas truce.

Does this really exist or was it put there for the programme. I can't find any mention in any books, where is it????

Merry Christmas!

[Chris_B]

Anyone for a Turkey sandwich? Just watched the programme myself while trying to get into the Guiness Book of Records for eating the most mince pies in 30 mins. But as I just had to sit in my computer chair which forces me upright and helps with digestion, what better way to spend a minute or two but to look in on the forum.

A possilbe answer to your question is that it was put there by the "Kahki Chums". I'm sure you will have noticed "Taff G's" ever present rosey cheeks on the prog.

Take a look at this web ref: http://www.aftermathww1.com/bairnsfather.asp

PS Sprouts seem to be making a pretty bad gas cloud round here time to don the respirator.

[Captain Chavasse]

The cross was put there by the Khaki Chums, and it's a very handy marker when looking for the field, which used to be hard to find. Last christmas there was also a football left there and my friend and i kicked it to each other on the edge of the field. Very quickly i might add, and we got off before the farmer appeared and shot us. I don't think there were turnips in it though, they looked like potatoes.

[Tom Morgan]

Taff Gillingham's story of the Chums spending Christmas 1999 "in the trenches" is Here. The article includes a picture of the Chums' original wooden cross which was replaced in the ceremony earlier this month, I think.

Tom

[Terry Carter]

Here is a picture of the new cross made out of oak that was re-dedicated after the unveiling of the memorial plaque to Bruce Bairnsfather on the cottage wall at St Yvon, 13 december, 2003. The cross is approx 100 yards from the cottage.

Terry

[Chris_Baker]

I must admit I find it odd that the cross remembers a re-enactment group sitting in a hole in the field. This is surely more about self-promotion than about remembrance...or I am I being too cynical?

[iain mchenry]

Chris,

I dont think you are being too cynical at all. I have thought a lot about this myself when I regulary drive past the cross. It is nice to see a memorial on the site, however I think it should be dedicated to the memory of the British and German regiments that met there on Xmas day.

Iain

[Tim Birch]

I rather agree with Chris. A wooden cross is a traditional grave marker, or marks the spot where people died or a body was found. A traditional symbol of remembrance, although arguably inappropriate for non-Christians.

I think it is an unfortunate choice of symbol for marking a place where re-inactors carried out an experiment or whatever. By all means mark the place if it is considered nessessary for historical reasons, but why not with a simple post or plaque?

Tim

[Guest jbd]

It is worth reminding the "knockers" that until Taff and the Kahki Chums marked the site with the first wooden cross, the vast majority of people did not have the faintest idea where the truce took place. In the event, the site of the "match" was not actually at what is now the roadside but some 50 meters or more into the adjoining field. The cross is placed where it is to avoid "site spotters" tramping all over the growing crops.

I am aware that the Holt's article describes the Kahki Chums as "re-enactors", but this is something that Taff strongly denies. Given that the expression is usually used to describe parties that re live battle engagements, it is perhaps not surprising.

Why not a cross? It is usually regarded as a Christaian symbol(but not exclusively so) and is certainly not exclusively used as a grave marker. I am sure that most of us are aware that the current IWGC/CWGC grave marker is not in the shape of a cross at alland that a small number of current grave stones are not actually embellished with a cross.

Personally, I am delighted that Taff and the Chums took the time and effort to mark the site

Barrie Dobson

[Chief_Chum]

Happy Christmas to you all.

I thought that a few lines from me may give you all a clearer idea of the story of the Christmas Truce Memorial Cross. I don't expect you all to agree but I hope you will at least take the trouble to read the following.

First of all, in answer to Matt's original questions:

Yes, the Cross does exist and it is mentioned in two books:

Stanley Weintraub's book, 'Silent Night' where he concludes his Introduction by stating that the Cross is, "...the only memorial to The Christmas Truce", and in 'Major and Mrs Holt's Battlefield Guide to the Ypres Salient' where it features alongside the story of Bairnsfather's Christmas of 1914. There is a photograph of the original Cross and a mention of the visit of Barbara Littlejohn (nee Bairnsfather) in 2002 when she laid a wreath at the cross in memory of her father and all those who took part in he Truce.

The Cross is easy to find. It is on the edge of the village of St Yvon, just to the north of Plugstreet Wood and almost opposite the pond where Bairnsfather had his photograph taken on Christmas Day, 1914.

The programme you saw on Christmas Day was, in fact, made in January 2002 for the American History Channel (and shown last year on Christmas Day). There had been quite a lot of re-editing for the UK market and some extra footage included of John Cooksey and John Hughes-Wilson who were not in the original. The curious inclusion of Caton-Woodville's drawing of 8/E.Surreys on 1 July 1916 instead of a Bairnsfather cartoon has its origins in part of the US programme in which the director was alluding to the British obsession with football in wartime (which fortunately got the chop from the UK version!).

As Art Director for the programme, I designed and built a trench system about five miles north of York which was constructed using the methods and materials of December 1914. Despite many people assuming otherwise, all the 'soldiers' were not Chums but family and friends of the Producer and her children. We were very lucky in that she came from a military family (her uncle was a general) and she was prepared to let us give the boys enough formal Great War training to make them look convincing. The production runner was the son of the Chief of the Defence Staff too! The same trench sytem was later used for the two Blue Peter programmes of last year.

Anyway, I digress. The inclusion of the Cross in the programme was straightforward. The production team asked me if there were any surviving veterans of The Truce. When I said no they asked about sons and daughters of those who took part which was quite an unusual idea. I suggested Barbie and they arranged to have her flown over. In the meantime the production team tracked down Rudolph Zehmisch. Amazingly - and quite unexpectedly - when he turned up he had all his father's original maps and photographs of December 1914 and it turned out that his father, Kurt, was in a section of German trench directly opposite 1/R.Warwicks! (Kurt disappeared on the Eastern Front during the Second World War).

Barbie had never visited the spot before and I showed her exactly where her father had spent Christmas Day, 1914 and related it to his map (which he included in 'Bullets and Billets'). It was quite an experience and she and Rudolph asked to lay a wreath at the Cross after they had completed filming. The decision to use the Cross in the programme was down to Vikram, the Director.

The story of the Cross itself is briefly touched on in the account on Tom Morgan's Hellfire Corner website as Tom has already pointed out. It has also recently been replaced as both Tom and Terry Carter have said. However, as several of you clearly don't know the story, here it is:

Right from the start, The Association for Military Remembrance ('The Khaki Chums') are not a re-enactment group. Never have been. Never will be. In fact, two years ago we received a sum of money (which we donated to charity) after we threatened to start legal proceedings over this matter with persons who shall remain nameless. Hopefully we shall soon have the Chums official website completed and everyone will be able to read exactly what the Chums do, what their aims are and who are members (authors, collectors, academics, and experts in many aspects of British military history, 1899-1960). In Corelli Barnett's word, "The Chums are...a huge knowledge resource." That is exactly what the Chums are. Barrie Dobson is right in saying that the Holt's article about the plans for the plaque describe the Chums as re******rs but as soon as we saw this we took it up with them and all subsequent press releases and statements had deleted the word altogether.

As we were planning the commemoration of the Truce in 1999, the local police pointed out that , over the Christmas period, the CWGC would probably be shut and that the Police would not appreciate us discovering the body of a British of German soldier. Their advice was to mark the spot and dig round them. Hoping that this would not be necessary we, of course, took the trouble of making a wooden cross to mark any unfortunate that we came across.

(On our last day at St Yvon in 1999, a group of young Belgian metal detector enthusiasts turned up and asked if they could check out the site. We told them that the ground didn't belong to us and pointed out that detecting was illegal but, as we were off, it was up to them. Two days later we heard from the same grup that, as a result of them coming to see us, they had uncovered Harry Wilkinson the Lancashire Fusilier a short distance away (now buried in Prowse Point Cemetery). Tim Clover always says that his original cross was for Harry Wilkinson.)

Luckily no bodies were found on our site and, on the last day we filled in the trench and had a short service at the side of the road where our Bugler played The Last Post and we laid a wreath. Tim Clover, who had made the cross, cut the simple inscription into the Cross for the occasion and we marched away confidant that, within a very short space of time, the cross would be removed and used for firewood.

It came as quite a shock to hear from a WFA member two weeks later that the local people had soaked the Cross in wood preserver and set it in concrete. I called one of the locals and told him that we were quite embarrassed as we're not in the business of creating memorials. He replied by saying, "No, you don't understand. Before you came, we always wondered why so many coaches came here and looked at a potato field - but now we know what happened here - this is now our memorial - and we shall look after it".

His point about it belonging to the local people is an important one. We often think of the Battlefields, cemeteries and memorials of the Western Front as 'ours'. Once upon a time it was very rare to see ordinary French or Belgian people attending British or Commonwealth services. Our stay at Plugstreet certainly changed that. With no pre-publicity at all (sorry Chris - not a bit of self-promotion in sight!) in France and Belgium (although we freely admit to plenty in the UK as we were trying to raise money for ex-service charities - over £2,000 in the end) we were expecting a quiet Christmas learing about the every day life of 1914. Unfortunately for the integrity of our original plans - but fortunately in the light of the interest since - we were discovered by a local journalist and the whole thing took off.

French and Belgian national television came to interview us on Christmas Eve and asked us why we were doing this. We told them:

a) To experience something of the life of the soldier of 1914.

To raise money for ex-service charities, and

c) At Christmas we all eat too much, we all drink too much, we all have a good time and what we hope to do by coming here is to make the people of France and Belgium stop - just for a moment - and think of all the men who came here and died here just for them.

That last line opened the floodgates.

By the end of the trip we had not achieved everything we set out to do - but had achieved something totally different. Over 2,500 French, Belgian, Dutch, British and German people visited us - most just to pay their respects to the men of 1914. Can you imagine people in the UK leaving their homes on Christmas Day to visit a group of foreigners who had dug a hole in Kent? Neither can I. But visit they did - from as far away as the Brittany coast to the German border. we even had a visit from Russian TV. After 1999, the people of mainland Europe had cartainly all heard of the Christmas Truce of 1914.

Since then we have visited the Cross every year and never cease to be amazed at how many wreaths, poppy crosses, etc are laid there. I was flown to Washington to be interviewed for another American television programme about the Truce in 2001 and the co-interviewee was Stanley Weintraub. His book, 'Silent Night' was just at its final proof stage and he showed me his Introduction featuring the story of the Cross and how it was the only memorial to the Truce (sorry Chris - still no self-promotion - Stanley had found out about it all by himslef).

Later I was given a copy of Tonie and Valmai Holt's Ypres Battlefield Guide which has a photograph of the original Cross and a description of Barbie Bairnsfather's 2002 visit there (again - all done with out any self-promoting publicity from us).

By the end of 2002 the original Cross was looking very tired. This was hardly surprising as it had only been made from thin softwood as a temporary grave marker. We had to make a decision whether to remove the Cross altogether - or to replace it with something more permanent. In a way, the two books which featured the Cross - and the massive amount of people who visit it each year made the decision for us. We then had to decide whether to replicate the text exactly or whether to alter the words in some way. After much internal debate, we decided to use exactly the same text as before but on a more long-lasting cross. It was agreed that, it was one thing to accidentally erect a memorial, but to re-write it five years later may be seen as inappropriate.

So, Tim Clover (a cabinet maker by trade) made a replacement from 100-year-old oak, joined with traditional square pegs in round holes. As the replacement was taking shape and plans to return to St Yvon on our own to replant and dedicate the new cross in December 2003 were being finalised, we received a call from Valmai Holt. She told us that a plaque was being erected to Bruce Bairnsfather on the cottage which now stands on the site of the one where he drew his first cartoon. She asked us if we would like to attend the service. I explained that we already had a service of our own booked for December and she suggested that the two services were combined.

In the end, we had a very moving day at St Yvon on 13 December with Revd Ray Jones of St Georges Church, Ypres blessing both the plaque and the Christmas Truce Cross. I gave a short description of the story of the Cross and how it came to be there and wreaths were laid.

I have already mentioned above why it happened to be in the shape of a temporary grave marker cross (ie that's what it was) - but there is another reason why it is an appropriate symbol too. During our stay there in 1999 we had a service on Christmas morning. During the service I read out the names, ranks and regiments of all those who were killed in action on Christmas Day, 1914. I am not at home writing this so, unfortunately, I don't have the numbers to hand - but the Cross did make the point that, while there was a truce in some places, many people were killed on 25-xii-14. The Cross remembers all of them.

During the service on 13 December I pointed out that Bairnsfather dedicated his 1916 book, 'Bullets and Billets' "to Bill, Bert and Alf - who have sat in the mud with me". In other words to the other ranks of the pre-War regular army. In the same vein, our cross was dedicated to "Bill, Bert, Alf - and Bruce" - all the Officers and Men of the Old Contemptibles who took part in the 1914 Truce.

Sorry Iain - I totally disagee that a memorial on that site should just commemorate only the British and German soldiers who met on that particular spot. What about everyone else who took part? Whilst truces are by no means as uncommon in warfare as television programme makers may have us believe, that 'accidental' memorial now commemorates the whole Christmas Truce of 1914 - along many miles of the front - whether we like it or not. It just happens to be sited on the best-documented section.

Hopefully by now at least some of you will agree that it has no more to do with commemorating the Khaki Chums sitting in a hole than the Butte de Warlencourt on the Somme has to do with commemorating The Western Front Association whose name also appears on the plaque there.

Totally without any "self-promotion" at all, the Cross has gained a momentum of its own and is now looked after by the local people. We could revisit many post Great War memorials and ask if they are "inappropriate for non-Christians?" or say to ourselves "by all means mark the place if it is considered necessary for historical reasons, but why not with a simple post or plaque?".

At least our innocuous little cross will have very little impact on the Battlefield - and hopefully will never spawn a Visitor's Centre and coach park!

Thank you to Barrie and those of you who have supported the Chums and understood the real meaning behind The Christmas Truce Memorial Cross - a cross that just happened to be erected by The Khaki Chums (Barrie - our 1999 trench was on the edge of the field as, having found the original trench line, the ground was too wet to dig into in the middle of the field and the farmer was concerned that his tractors would sink into the soft earth!).

Thanks too to the rest of you - there is no point in the study of history if we all agree with each other!

So finally, yes Chris, I think you are being too cynical. I hope that you take the time and trouble to find out what the Chums really do before holding forth in future. I look forward to your visit to our local WFA where you can tell us your opinions in person (and I'm looking forward to your talk too).

With best wishes to everyone for 2004.

Taff

Taff Gillingham

Chief Chum

[Chris_Baker]

Excellent reply, Taff. Welcome to the forum!

[Chief_Chum]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for that. I have often browsed through your forum but I just had to respond this time!

I look forward to seeing you in Suffolk for your talk.

Keep up the good work!

Cheers,

Taff

[Guest Pete Wood]

Taff, nicely put - and, as Chris says, a warm welcome. It is said that there is always two sides to any story, and you have certainly proved that (in a warm and friendly manner).

You've put a few myths to bed and, I readily admit, changed my perceptions on what the Khaki Chums are all about. I look forward to seeing the new/improved website in the not too distant future.

I now hope that you will continue to visit the forum and enlighten us with your knowledge on other subjects.

Pete

[paul guthrie]

Very well done and you changed my mind, am glad I kept my first opinion to myself.

[Paul Reed]

I had the pleasure of meeting and hearing Taff at a recent history conference at the University of Kent. It certainly made me realise that the Chums are far from being re-enactors, and Taff and his mates are making an important contribution to our knowledge of WW1. Taff is also an excellent speaker, and if you haven't had him at one of your local WFA branches yet, you should.

I hope you will become a regular contributor to the site, Taff!

[Terry Carter]

Having met Taff and the rest of the Chums on 13 December, I would like to say what a cracking bunch of lads they are. I missed Taff when he came to do a talk at the Birmingham WFA. I was told it went down very well.

Happy new year to all

Khaki Chums, Chief Chum's, chum.... or Terry

[Tim Birch]

Taff

Thank you for the detailed explanation. My opinion on the choice of a cross remains unchanged, but I do now understand.

Welcome to the Forum, I look forward to learning more from you about the work of the Chums.

Tim

[Chief_Chum]

Thank you for all your responses. I'm delighted to see that I'm not the only one who has better things to do than watch repeats on the TV today!

I appreciate all your comments. As you can imagine it is very difficult getting the message across that the Chums are not re-enactors when there are plenty of other people dressed in the same kit who are.

The most successful way of explaining ourselves has always been at talks for WFA branches, Regimental associations, Universities, etc - and it's great to have feedback from Paul as someone who has actually attended a talk and heard what we have to say. Thanks Paul!

I shall try to contribute whenever I can and I shall certainly encourage all the other Chums to register too as many of them have a great deal of knowledge on various aspects of Great war British Miltary History which, I am sure, will prove useful to other Forum members.

With thanks and best wishes,

Taff

[stevew]

Taff,

Excellent explanation, I didn't know about the new cross and I look forward to seeing it (hopefully soon).

Just like to add how much I enjoy seeing your work on the various satellite channels, and how much it has helped improve my own knowledge of the Great War - Thank you

Steve

[Matt Dixon]

Taff,

I agree with all the comments posted and you have most definately put across your argument most eloquently. I think the work you have done is excellent and credit where credit is due for your most detailed answer.

I look forwards to visiting the cross some time next year, and with all the others I look forwards to reading more of your posts in future!

Welcome to TLLT!

[Tom Morgan]

I agree- nice to see Taff here. My wife and I went to Belgium over the 1999 Christmas period, for two reasons - one was to attend the "Kerstbestand" Christmas Truce concert in Dixmuide, and the other was to meet Taff and the Chums. I can tell you, there was nothing self-aggrandising about them when they came out of their trench! They looked like........ well, "Bent double, coughing like hags" just about sums it up. We thought they'd achieved something very noble. It certainly inspired us to give up a little bit of our own Christmas to see them.

The lads done good.

Tom

[petrick]

Good day to you all,

As a Dutch so called (ww1 reenactor) I like to put my insignificant reply to this thread. Ive read all the yarns that were spon about the remembrance cross. And my answer is maybe to simple for the members of this forum. Iff people want to honour the people wo left their lives in the great war, wether by marking a spot with a cross ore by wearing a uniform and display as integer as possible a soldier of this war. As to keep the memory for them alive and even let other people stop and just even for a brief moment let them think about what happened need no puts down. I also was at the rededication in 2003 can say that integrety and honest remembrance from al present was felt.

At last, remember them anyway you like, but remember them cause i still think they fought to end al wars and by thinking so they did.

[IanA]

This memorial was completely new to me. I was taking a walk around Ploegsteert/ St Yvon last week when I stumbled across it. I thought pals might like to see how it is today.

Also the Bairnsfather plaque:

[Mick D]

I visited this site earlier this month, never thought I would find it, but due to the cross being located where it is not only is a memorial, but a landmark. thank you to Taff ( & others) for being involved in its placement.

Mick

[Chief_Chum]

Dear All,

Thank you for your very kind comments.

The Cross had recently been damaged and, last Sunday, it was temporarily removed to be repaired.

It will be re-instated in November so it is back in plenty of time for the 93rd Anniversary of the Truce in December.

With best wishes,

Taff