Somme 4

I have now had word from Timecast that my trenches and other bits are done for my Somme game, I shall collect them on my return from holiday in early August.

I spent sometime yesterday furthering my research into the Thiepval sector, during which I came across this letter, written by the Rev. Major R. H. Royle, M.C,, 11th Manchesters at Stuff Redoubt.

"And what of Thiepval today? A few scarred lumps., a score or more smashed up stones, one solitairy civilian grave (alas, how many more graves of our brave laddies?) mark the site of what was once a flourishing and contented village.Yet, the scene is not without a brighter side. Within a mile of poor devastated Thiepval, shell holes have been filled in, barbed wire removed and trenches blocked up. Already the French peasants are reaping their harvest, back once more in their own part of their beloved France, living like foxes in holes in the ground, old Nissen Huts, trench shlketers - anywhere, but full of joy at being home again after nearly five years in exile. At Pozieres, a little child was playing on a swing on the top of our old battalion HQ..."

published in the Salford City Reporter, 1919, after Major Royle had returned to the battlefield that year.,

What a moving piece of writing, telling of the continuation of things following the devastation of the previous few years. It can often be forgotten that the battlefields we study and walk were the homes, back yards and work places of the civilians who inhabited the lands before war visited them. And what of them once the fighting had stopped. what was left for them to rebuild those shattered lives?