The Glorious Dead

So, the east of France. After missing out much of this last time, I am surprised to find how very different it feels. The most obvious thing is that the war - well, wars - are everywhere. Not only in the "tombes" of the Commnwealth, which are quite honestly ubiquitous, but somehow in the slightly sombre mien of the place; the wind blown plateaux, the undefendable plains and the grizzling skies. I cannot imagine what it must be like to live here, amongst the constant reminders of the darkest aspects of the human soul; the flags and obilisks and the long lines of crosses and gravestones.

The Somme was beautiful but terrible. There was not one village without a cemetary of some kind, usually set back discretely from the road and marked with a black and white sign. I stopped once or twice, but there are too many to stop at them all, which felt terribly disrespectful. They are all so tidy and quiet and intensely moving in this raw and empty setting. Impossible not to cry, frankly, because there are just so many graves. Thousands. Then, at Bray sur Somme, there was the French flag and Union Jack flying by the roadside at the entrance to the town and in Laon cathedral (about which more to follow), a small sign on the wall: a thank you "to the million of the British Commonwealth who fell during the 1914-18 war. Most of whom remain in France." Incomprehensible loss. Very sobering.