Delville Wood Cemetery

[paul guthrie]

There were 173 who signed the book according to Denis Winter, Death's Men. I do not know how the same man could write this fine book and garbage like Haig's Command, a Reappraisal. I am not a particularly big fan of his but the book is garbage.

How does the # of visitors compare to nowadays?

[Guest jbd]

. I do not know how the same man could write this fine book and garbage like Haig's Command, a Reappraisal. I am not a particularly big fan of his but the book is garbage.

I cannot answer the question with numbers but on many a fine day on the Somme, this particular cemetery would have dozens of people in it at the same time.

I cannot help but feel that Paul's "review" of "Haig's Command" would be more appropriate in the book review section where I would be delighted to prove it wrong!

Barrie Dobson

[Paul Reed]

I think Delville Wood has something like 100,000+ visitors a year now. Winter's figure for the 70s would be about right. I can remember even ten years later many isolated cemeteries on the Somme and Hindenburg Line where the old style bound registers went back to the 1930s - I hope someone has kept them, somewhere.

[Mark A]

What actually happens to the old registers? As Geoff Dyer wrote:

"What happens to the old ones? Burnt? Filed away in archives? If the latter, then perhaps an academic will one day salvage all these pages and use this hoard of raw data as the basis of a comprehensive survey of attitudes to the war and ways in which it is remembered... there is certainly enough material to fill a book: people who come here are moved and want to record their feelings, explain themselves."

[Clive Harris]

the original 1930's register for Rancourt British Cemetery was only replaced last Autumn, I was gutted as it contained a couple of unusual miscellany. There was an entry for Major Dickens who lies somewhere in the surrounding fields but has no known grave is this unique? and of course no entry for the 1939-45 aircrew as the register was older than thier headstones.

The visitors book also went back to the mid 1980's, the new register appears to contain far less personal information.