What is America to me?

As the newly inaugurated President Trump repeated the words “America First”, I thought of the immaculate white crosses above Omaha Beach in Normandy. Their beautifully tended cemetery above the DDay landing sites are testament to the fact that eventually all of us have to face the fact that we are citizens of a big wide world, a world that faces common problems that require collaborative efforts. America would not have defeated Fascism by repeating Trump’s mantra. 

In June of 2019 Single Step Tours helped the Honors College at the University of Wyoming construct a tour of the battlefields of northern France. We met up in London, and caught a ferry to Caen in bright sunshine. Three nights in Bayeux gave us the opportunity to explore the DDay battlefield in some detail, but perhaps the strongest impression on the students was when we stood on the sandy beach and looked up at the bluffs. In that moment we shared the perspective of those brave young soldiers  as they emerged from their landing craft on that fateful morning. It was experiential learning at its most powerful.

The tour moved on to the WW1 battlefields. The poetry of that war was shared and reflected upon in the fields of the Somme, where in 1916 the world began to see what industrialised warfare was capable of. We were also able to look at the challenges faced by nurses and doctors in these horrific circumstances. 

The last leg of the tour took us to Dunkirk, where 338,000 British soldiers were rescued from the beaches and returned to the U.K. in 1940. Hitler’s Blitzkreig had won a battle, but the successful evacuation played an important part in ensuring that the forces of liberal democracy would win the war. The view across the beaches was the ideal setting for a more general reflection on warfare in the 20th century. What causes war? Why fight? Most importantly, how should the lessons of the 20th century guide us through the 21st? 

The students and faculty of the University of Wyoming were thoughtful, open minded people who brought a variety of disciplines to the mix. Their contributions to the discussion on the ferry home showed that the whole experience had a profound impact on them. It was a reminder to me of why the battlefields are the best classroom a teacher could wish for, and why I do what I do. 

“What will survive of us is love...”

Working on a book about Welsh rugby star Charlie Pritchard has brought this line of Philip Larkin’s to mind more than once. 

Charlie was killed after leading a trench raid in August 1916, and now lies in a CWGC Cemetery at Chocques, near Béthune. A famous rugby international in his day, Charlie had been a firm favourite of the fans at Rodney Parade, where he led a ferocious pack of forwards in the famous Black and Amber shirt of Newport RFC. It would have been no surprise to people in his home town that he had shown such selfless leadership on the Western Front. For years after his death, his daughter would be greeted by strangers in the street, all wanting to tell her that her father had been a great man. More than just a rugby player.

Charlie’s family, of course, were well aware of that. His wife Florence was forever unable to face the day of his death, the 14th of August. Her children recalled that she would cut a bloom from Charlie’s rose garden and place it in a vase in the centre of the dining room, then retire to bed for the rest of the day. Her daughter Violet, born a few weeks after the death of Charlie, came to dread the 14th August every year, when the family’s wound would open once more. Violet died in 1985 - on the 14th of August. 

“He Did His Bit”

“He Did His Bit”
The Charlie Pritchard story
The discovery of a set of rugby shirts over a hundred years old turned into my latest writing project. Charlie was a Welsh international rugby player who died in WW1 - so anyone who knows me would know that it was bound to become an obsession!
These historic shirts will be exhibited at the World Rugby Museum at Twickenham. My blog piece from their site is here.

Our Eternal Home

Six years ago I began working on a book that tried to uncover the stories behind the list of 50 names that are etched into the heavy oak commemoration board that is housed in the Library at King Edward VI School, Southampton. The Stormy Blast was published by Natula in 2013, by which time I had set up Single Step Tours. As one of several trial runs at bespoke battlefield tours, I took my colleague Mike Long to the Somme. We were on the trail of his uncle, a young artillery officer who was killed in 1918.
This morning I managed a sneak preview of Mike’s own reflection on the War, a statue finished in bronze that will stand in one of the quads in the school building. Two years in the making, the piece is an eloquent and clever statement on the war. Working with Talos Art Foundry near Andover, Mike is a specialist in working in bronze, and is keen to follow up with more large scale commissions.

Three young men (whose detailed uniforms make it clear are representative of the army, the navy and the airforce) are fused, arm in arm, an embodiment of the enthusiasm of the young recruits. They share a hymn book, and the lines from the school hymn are etched into the base - “Time, like an ever rolling stream/Bears all its sons away...”
The quote is just one detail that the eye is drawn to in this quite startling piece of art. A trench line, a propeller, flare gun, a bullet holed canteen. The detritus of war, the horrific experiences that lie in wait for these smiling young men as they belt out the hymn for the last time at their “eternal home”.
For me, there are some familiar names - O.J. Hobbs, the science teacher killed at the Ancre in November 1916. Arthur Wolfe, the school’s head boy, his prize pupil, who followed him to a Somme grave in February 1917. This statue bears witness to their sacrifice.
Zoom in further - some will pick out the cap badges, cast from original WW1 badges, including Mike’s own uncle’s. Others will see the flies on the horse’s head - astonishingly, cast from real flies that were buzzing all around his studio. This is art that will reward a careful look. Not surprisingly given the artist’s background, this is art that teaches without lecturing, and is designed to make us think about the war and about rememberance.

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” Edgar Degas

Play Up and Play the Game!

Heavily involved in the planning of a Compiegne Rugby Festival this November, when we hope to put 7 a side teams together from all over Europe. Hoping they’ll answer the call...
Just as sportsmen from all countries were drawn in to the recruiting campaigns between 1914-1918.

A bit different to piecing together itineraries for bespoke battlefield or cultural tours, but enjoying the challenge.

Walter Martin (Newport RFC and Wales)

On 3 May 1933 friends and family gathered at a graveside in Newport, South Wales. Thousands had lined the streets as the funeral cortège climbed the hill to the church. All were united by a desperate sense of grief and guilt.
Walter Martin had been diagnosed with cancer and had been recovering at Saint Woolos Hospital but mental instability had plagued his recovery. His family had even removed disinfectant from cupboards, so worried were they that Walter would kill himself. Close friends were also aware of the danger and visited him daily.
There was an impressive collection of Welsh sporting celebrities at the funeral. One of these was Tommy Vile, Walter Martin's partner in the Newport rugby side, a man whose leadership and tactical nous turned a clever but sometimes frustratingly inconsistent player like Walter into a man who managed to represent his country, a shredder of opposition defences who accumulated over 300 points for Newport. Elusive and brave, he had played a key part in the famous 1912 defeat of the plegendary Springboks. By 1933, however, Walter was a pale shadow of his former self, a gifted sportsmen fallen from grace.
Like so many men of that era his sporting career was cut short by the declaration of war in 1914. Walter, along with many fellow members of the Newport club, joined the South Wales Borderers. The misfortunes of war led Martin and his pals to Salonica. Not as famous a front as the Somme or Ypres perhaps, but the British Army alone lost over 10,000 men in this often forgotten corner of the Great War.
At the Battle of Doiran Walter Martin's bravery and leadership lead to the award of the DCM ( Distinguished Conduct Medal). The citation described Walter as "totally regardless of danger" as he rescued a wounded man under shellfire and carried him to the safety of the Allied trenches.
The four years lost to war robbed Walter and so many others of precious time when he was at the peak of his athletic powers. It may well be that the war had damaged him for ever, as his mental health deteriorated after he finished playing in 1921. His family and friends had to endure the view from the front seats as the tragedy of Walter Martin's last act unfolded. He was found dead in his room at the hospital having strangled himself with a scarf on 30th April 1933. Although Walter had left the trenches fifteen years back, he was as much a victim of the war as the men who had never returned home.

"Where are we now..."

"Peace is the chief of all the world's wealth..." John Gower (1330-1408)

Chaucer's mate knew something about war. Gower was only 7 years old when the "war to end all wars" of his generation started, and peace only returned to Europe nearly half a century after his death. 71 of his 78 years on this Earth had been spent in a country at war with its nearest neighbour, France.  The so called Hundred Years War may not be a subject that is often brought into everyday conversation (!), but the dark days leading up to 1939 are, at present, often revisited. The Trump presidency, with its love of autocratic diktats, the rise of right wing parties, the rhetoric of division - all this is offered as proof that we are under threat from a new wave of dictatorships. Alt-Right is just a geekish version of Fascism. With the KKK crooning over Trump, and our own EDL in Brexit Wonderland, there is little doubt that we are in difficult times.

The key thread for us to understand is that this carefully marshalled populist tide is aiming to wash away the bulwarks that have been constructed during the 20th century - bulwarks that keep us in the calm waters of the harbour. Steve Bannon, Trump's muse, is a pirate. Famously, he expressed the desire to "destroy the state". He wants those separate countries out of the safety of the harbour, out on the high seas, where he can bully them at will.
When he says "the state" he means big institutions such as Trade Areas and the EU. Institutions that have the clout to stand up to bullies. Hence the Alt-Right's "populism". It is a means to an end, rather than a misty-eyed belief in Nationhood. But you only have to look at the way the UK is slipping towards some chaotic break up to understand that this is one genie that is extremely unlikely to go back into the bottle quietly. Bannon would look at where the UK is right now and nod approvingly.

Purely on an academic level, my own opinion is that we are in a situation more akin to the build up to WW1 than WW2.The build up of tensions on the road to war in 1914 was all to do with a mad scramble for power between increasingly nationalistic states. The militarisation of the conflict was, to some extent, inevitable. The Kaiser's advisers pushed Europe to the brink of war because they believed that that was the way to get what they wanted. The suspicion is that President Bannon's foreign policy will be no more than a series of set plays, a study in brinksmanship in Iran and the South China Seas. Meanwhile, Putin will make inroads into the Baltic states and Ukraine. Almost as if it's co-ordinated. As if someone's made a deal. A great deal.

As a Tour Guide who spends a lot of time (my family would say way too much...) in the cemeteries that are dotted around Ypres and the Somme, I am perhaps acutely aware of just how dangerous this Alt-Right game could be. One of the key questions I'm asked quite often is a disarmingly simple one - "Could this happen again?" Up till this last summer I've been able to answer with some confidence. "No. Because we're all Europeans now." Now, when that question is posed, I'll look out across the 13,000 graves at Tyne Cot Cemetery and gaze towards the distant spires of Ypres. I'll shrug my shoulders. Because I really don't know anymore. One thing is certain - politicians who talk loosely about going to war are guilty of wilfully ignoring any lessons of history. To go to war is the sign that a foreign policy has failed, not an end in itself.

So here in Europe, watch out for Bannon's new Breitbart offices in Berlin and Paris pouring  out their bile in the direction of any non right wing candidate. Expect revelations on Macron and Merkel, mostly #fakenews, chipping away at the poll numbers. Make no mistake, the demise of the EU is a major target. Sadly, it might be worth remembering that the symbol of our eventual demise at the end of the Hundred Years War was the loss of Calais. Five centuries later, our retreat from the continent might be the first step towards a different, but no less significant, defeat.