Seeker

Ironmongery from WW1 is now arranged artfully in the garden at Hooge Crater and the deep craters themselves turned into lakes in a hotel garden. I took these photos during a visit earlier this year to the Flanders battlefields of World War 1 around the Ypres Salient. There is nothing like being in a place to help understand past events. My overwhelming impressions were twofold: what a waste of resources and lives how young were those men of many nations who died in Flanders fields Tyne Cot Cemetery Langemark Cemetery part of Falls the Shadow sculpture in Passchendaele Museum 2 minutes silence is observed in many parts of the world today to mark the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 when the guns fell silent at the end of the 'Great War', bringing peace of a sort but certainly not an end to war or the situations and attitudes that lead to war. Sometimes the only appropriate response to such horrors is silence, then pray...

Number 43 Gasthuisstraat in Poperinge, Belgium is one of the places I most wanted to visit during our recent visit to Ypres and the Flanders battlefields of World War I. I was not disappointed. Since 1915 (apart from when occupied by German military in WW2) it has been known as Talbot House or 'Toc H'. Except for a brief time in the autumn of 1914 Poperinge was in the small area of Belgium not occupied by the German army in World War 1. Only 10 km from Ypres it became a staging post for the thousands of British, Canadian, Australian and Indian troops moving to and from the front line and a place of recreation during leave. It's population was also swollen by poorer refugees from other parts of Belgium - the richer refugees having mostly escaped to France or Britain.  The juxtaposition of so many destitute refugees and thousands of young men with money in their pockets had inevitable, not always healthy consequences.  Poperinge became known as 'Little Paris...