First World War – Julie Summers

Mallory & Irvine 1924-2024: commemorating the greatest mountaineering mystery of all time

Posted on June 10, 2024June 10, 2024 by Julie Summers

Mallory & Irvine leaving Camp IV on 6 June 1924, taken by Noel Odell (C)Royal Geographical Society

On Saturday 8 June 2024 over 600 people gathered at the Royal Geographical Society in London to mark the 100^th anniversary of the disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine. Among the crowd were more than 30 members of the Mallory family, 8 Irvines and a good showing of Odells, Nortons, Somervells and Morshead (from the 1922 expedition). It was a great event and one charged with more emotion than I had expected.

It all started with a reception for the family members where at least sixty of us gathered in the entrance hall. It was fun to renew friendships and meet other expedition party relatives. It is not often you can walk up to someone and ask boldly ‘so, who are you?’ and get a friendly response of ‘I’m a Norton/Somervell/Odell.’ Meantime a film made by the Alpine Club, Everest Revisited 1924-2024, which looks at the 1920s Everest expeditions, was premiered in the lecture theatre. It focuses on all the participants, including the sherpa and porters, as well as the two well-known protagonists. It offers a fascinating mixture of archive footage, interviews including Chris Bonington, Stephen Venables, Dawson Stellfox, and Leo Houlding in Mallory replica clothing, and thought-provoking commentary from Ed Douglas comparing the 1920s expeditions with today.

Leo Houlding, Graham Hoyland and I each gave a short illustrated talk to shed light on various aspects of the 1924 expedition. Leo talked about making the IMAX film The Wildest Dream on Everest in 2007. He remembered Conrad Anker calling him out of the blue in 2006 and asking him how he would like to play Sandy Irvine. ‘The easiest decision of my life’, he told us. Filming is a lengthy process and no more so than for IMAX which requires huge cameras, batteries and other gear, and a lot of hanging around as shots are set up. Tedious at the best of times but dangerous on Everest. Seeing the footage of him hugging his toes in a tent after standing out in the snow and wind at some bewilderingly high altitude brought home the intensity of the cold on the mountain. His description of climbing the second step without the use of the Chinese ladder was particularly fascinating to the eager experts in the audience. He summited late in the season – on 14 June 2007 – so the IMAX team could be assured of an empty summit.

Leo Houlding warming his toes with all his might (C)Leo Houlding

Graham led us into the story of his relative, Howard Somervell, who famously gave George Mallory his Kodak Vestpocket camera as he prepared to leave Camp IV with Sandy Irvine for the final summit bid. The question of whether, if the camera is ever found, there will be a film to be developed has continued to fascinate Graham – and tens of thousands of others. What he also brought to our attention were Somervell’s notes on barometric pressure on Everest which proved that the pressure was as low on 8/9 June 1924 as it was during the great storm of 1996 that killed so many climbers. Both Leo and Graham believe it is unlikely the two climbers made it to the summit, though not impossible.

I took the audience back to Sandy’s childhood so that they could get some sort of picture of the man who has always stood in Mallory’s shadow. When he wrote to his wife, Ruth, from the voyage to India, Mallory said of Sandy Irvine ‘he’ll be one to rely on for everything except, perhaps, conversation.’ This phrase has been quoted over the last 100 years to condemn poor Sandy Irvine as a slightly thick if very able sportsman. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I had fun talking about his wild childhood adventures, his engineering genius evident even at school and his great rowing prowess. I didn’t dwell on his love affairs as they have been well-covered, but believe me, he was active on all fronts.

A meeting to decide who would be invited to the 1924 expedition (C)Alpine Club

After the break Dr Wade Davis zoomed in from Vancouver to give us the most extraordinary and moving talk about the Everest team members from all 3 expeditions of the 1920s. All but a handful had been involved in the First World War. He talked movingly about how Dr Arthur Wakefield (doctor in 1922) had lost his faith after witnessing only 37 survivors of the more than 800 men from his regiment from Canada who were slaughtered on the first day of the Battle of the Somme; how Howard Somervell, on duty as a young surgeon that day, saw six acres of injured and dying men; how Colonel Edward Norton took part in almost every campaign in the War. It was a tour de force and at times it was almost too painful to contemplate what those men had witnessed. Wade is brilliant and he was able to offer light relief when discussing how the expedition members were chosen. George Finch was an Australian with a very colourful married life who was left out of 1921 on account of being off his food, tired and having lost weight (he was in the middle of a second, untidy divorce). He was allowed to go in 1922 and performed well but was dropped in 1924 with no reasonable explanation. Though this did leave a gap which was filled by Sandy Irvine. What came out of this talk was the humanity and bravery of the expedition members, but also the sadness of the loss of Mallory and Irvine. He quoted Edward Norton’s remarks at Base Camp in the aftermath: ‘We were a sad little party. We accepted the loss in that rational spirit which all of our generation had learnt in the Great War … but the tragedy was very near: our friends’ vacant tents and vacant places at table were a constant reminder to us.’

Norton wrote a letter to Sandy’s parents after their deaths, and I thought it would be fitting to quote from it at some length. I still find it moving today:

“Much that your son was to us I have already written of in various communiqués to the Times – From the word go he was a complete & absolute success in every way. He was spoken of by General Bruce in an early communiqué as our ‘experiment’ – I can assure you that his experimental stage was a short one as he almost at once became almost indispensable – It was not only that we leant on him for every conceivable mechanical requirement – it was more that we found we could trust his capacity, ingenuity & astonishingly ready good nature to be equal to any call. One of the wonderful things about him was how, though nearly 20 years younger than some of us, he took his place automatically without a hint of the gaucherie of youth, from the very start, as one of the most popular members of our mess.

The really trying times that we had throughout May at Camp III & the week he put in at Camp IV were the real test of his true metal – for such times inevitably betray a man’s weak points – & he proved conclusively & at once that he was good all through – I can hardly bear to think of him now as I last saw him (I was snowblind the following morning & never really saw him again) on the North Col – looking after us on our return from our climb – cooking for us, waiting on us, washing up the dishes, undoing our boots, paddling about in the snow, panting for breath (like the rest of us) & this at the end of a week of such work all performed with the most perfect good nature & cheerfulness.

Physically of course he was splendid – as strong as a horse – I saw him two or three times carry for some faltering porter heavier loads than any European has ever carried here before. He did the quickest time ever done between some of the stages up the glacier – one of his feats was to haul, with Somervell, a dozen or so porters loads up 150 feet of ice cliff on the way to the N. Col. As for his capacity as a mountaineer the fact that he was selected by Mallory to accompany him in the last & final attempt on the mountain speaks for itself.” As Norton himself said to Geoffrey Bruce when discussing Sandy Irvine, ‘men have had worse epitaphs.’

As we were marking the centenary in London, other commemorations were taking place around the country. In Birkenhead Dr Philip Walton put a candle in the window of 56 Park Road South, as Sandy’s mother had done in Wales when he disappeared. A light to show him the way home.

A candle in the window of 56 Park Road South

At Chester Cathedral’s evensong the choir and congregation processed to the stained-glass window in the cathedral’s cloisters dedicated to Mallory & Irvine. There they sang Psalm 121 and said prayers ‘in remembrance of their journey’.

Window in the cloisters of Chester Cathedral

Merton College flew the college flag at half-mast – a rare honour – and someone had laid flowers at the Irvine memorial in the college gardens. I had unveiled a blue plaque to Sandy Irvine on the wall of 56 Park Road South on Friday and the mayor of Birkenhead did the same for Mallory at 34 Slatey Road. It is extraordinary how this story of the disappearance of two men a century ago still touches people and moves them.

It has been a great journey and a huge joy to be involved in a quarter of a century of the Mallory and Irvine story. Now I am going to hand over to the next generation. I have loved getting to know great men and women from the world of mountaineering, including the wonderful Rebecca Stephens who led the event on Saturday on behalf of the Himalayan Trust. I am proud to call her a friend.

What can I say but thank you?

For anyone interested, there are exhibitions about Sandy Irvine and George Mallory at the following venues:

Merton College Oxford – see www.merton.ox.ac.uk for details

Birkenhead Park Visitor Centre https://birkenhead-park.org.uk/events/sandy-irvine-from-birkenhead-to-everest/

The Alpine Club, http://www.alpine-club.org.uk/events/past-future-exhibitions/1276-everest-1924

Celebrating Women

Posted on March 8, 2023March 9, 2023 by Julie Summers

It is wonderful to celebrate the amazing achievements of extraordinary women on International Women’s Day. I’m very pleased to have heard so many female composers featured on radio 3 this morning, for example. And the newspapers are full of impressive profiles of women who have defied the odds, challenged misogyny or battled against fearsome prejudice. I am fascinated to read those stories. They are inspiring and valuable. They can also be a little intimidating and seem far removed from ordinary life.

I’d like to celebrate women who achieve extraordinary things every ordinary day. I was going to name some who I have found particularly inspiring, but I decided that might be either embarrassing to those I named or hurtful to those I leave out. So, I won’t. I’m going to start with carers, as I have quite a bit of first-hand experience at present of those who work in this field. There is so much criticism in the press about the care sector, but these women, and they are often women in my experience, are among the kindest and least complaining people you could meet. They cater for people’s most basic needs with professional kindness so that the person being helped can maintain as much dignity as possible given the circumstances. Emptying commodes, dressing wounds, showering frail bodies and administering food or medicine is hardly glamorous work but it is vital and I admire their dedication. They make people’s lives better even if they cannot cure the ills. If I have a plea, it is to recognise this vital work that will never cease to be needed.

There are women in every walk of life who achieve little miracles daily – nurses, police officers, firewomen, teachers, classroom assistants. Then there are those who volunteer, running everything and anything, from sports clubs to food banks. The Women’s Institute, born in the second summer of the First World War, is one enormous body of talent and generosity whose work I found so inspiring I wrote a book about their work in the Second World War. The spirit that helped over a quarter of a million members to keep the countryside ticking in those difficult years embodies everything I admire about women of that time. To hell with red-tape and wartime bureaucracy, they got on with making jam, collecting herbs for medicine, knitting millions of items for the Home Guard, the Merchant Marine and evacuees. And they sang and smiled their way through it.

Community Singing at Flamstead WI in Hertfordshire during the Second World War

Archivists and librarians are people I admire enormously. They are often women who work behind the scenes safe-guarding history and thus the national memory. I have worked in archives all over the world and often the incredible collections they protect are underappreciated by the people whose histories are being preserved. Those of you who read my biography of Audrey Withers will know that she destroyed the entire Vogue archive in February 1942. Why did she do it? It was an act of fervent patriotism, urged on by her star photographer, Cecil Beaton, for paper salvage to help the war effort. What a loss, though, to future generations. She believed she was doing the right thing at that moment in history, and one cannot criticise her motives, but it does point to the value of original archive material to the memory of the nation. Material, I might add, that celebrated women far more than men.

This image appeared in March 1942 *Vogue* showing the pulping of photographs for the war effort

My current project, a biography of British Vogue, is full of stories about inspirational women from every decade of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, as well as some men. The magazine may be about fashion on one level but it is a celebration of the achievements of women on so many others. Over the last 105 years Vogue has covered every topic of interest to women of any given era. I find it life-affirming and hugely impressive to think about the achievements of women from every walk of life.

Much has been made recently of the value of friendship. It is something that is now understood to help to encourage healthier living and even a longer life. Studies in Australia established that women who have close female friendships are less likely to suffer from multiple serious conditions in later life. 7,700 women were tracked over twenty years to see whether they went on to contract diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, cancer, depression and half a dozen other serious conditions. ‘Researchers found that women who reported the lowest level of satisfaction with their social relationships had double the risk of developing multiple conditions compared with those who reported the highest levels of satisfaction.’ I raise a toast to the women I row with four or five mornings a week in Oxford. We were out today despite the snow and we loved it. If it helps us to stay healthier longer, well that’s just a wonderful side effect.

With a dear friend in a double scull on the river at Oxford, December 2022

So yes to celebrating International Women’s Day on 8 March but I want to celebrate women every day of the year.

Pedal to Paris 2021 Day by Day

Posted on September 7, 2021September 11, 2021 by Julie Summers

Pedal to Paris 2021 Day One London to Dover

121.31 km (75.38 miles)

1,296m (4,252 feet) ascent

5.15 hours

As we stood on the start line at Eltham Palace at 6:30 on a grey, chilly morning with mizzle, all the first-timers felt a sense of anxiety about whether we would make it to Paris at all. These were of course private thoughts, but I could sense them in the exchanges or silence between group members, while solo-riders looked nervous. Even the seasoned cyclists who have one, two, three or in the case of Paul Harding, 23 Pedals to Paris under their belts there was a sense of uncertainty about the ride to come.

We set off after soon after 7am and wove our way out of London, stopping and starting at lights, slowing and bunching to get around parked cars, dodging potholes and drains, manhole covers and cobbles. As we negotiated the M25 roundabout and set off into the lovely Kent countryside the speed picked up, we fell into small groups of riders and began to get the sense of moving together. It was nothing short of thrilling for me, who has only ever cycled with one or two other riders. At one stage six of us cycled for 10 miles without stopping, pedalling along at a comfortable pace higher than I had ever averaged in training.

Out of London and over the M25. We split into groups and got rolling

Our first stop was at the Royal British Legion village at Aylesford where we were welcomed by flag waving, cheering employees of the RBL and volunteers who served us coffee, sausage rolls, Vienna whirls and all sorts of goodies that in normal times I would not eat at 10 o’clock in the morning. That was a sign of things to come. Whenever we stopped anywhere en route we could be assured a fantastic welcome, sustenance, encouragement and some gentle ribbing.

Day One ended with a monstrous hill into Dover which nearly blew my thighs, such was the build up of lactic acid as we struggled at snail’s pace in Grannie gear up the New Dover Road to Capel-le-Ferne. 120m of climbing over about 0.75km. Unrelenting and painful. Our ride captains, a magnificent and talented group of cyclists who looked after us, encouraged us, helped when we fell off or fell back, were there on that hill, 65 miles into our first day, to help those who struggled up it. Two of them cycled up the hill four times. I took my hat off to them so often over the next three days.

Waiting for the ferry below the White Cliffs

Once we arrived in Dover we were ushered onto The Spirit of Britain and had a welcome supper of fish and chips with a beer to replace the much-depleted sugar levels in our blood, which Simon assured me was a good cure. Later we learned that the consumption of alcohol on the Tour de France was only banned in 1960. Not for health reasons but because it was believed to be a stimulant.

As we rolled off the boat and onto the quayside the enormity of getting here struck us all. It was nothing short of magical to step onto continental soil for the first time since the pandemic broke out 18 months ago. For most of us it was the first time abroad and the emotions were very close to the surface. We pedalled to the great Fort Nieulay and put our bikes into safe storage for the night and made our way to the hotels. Never has Belgian beer, which Simon, Chris and I found a nearby café, tasted so good.

Calais Fort Nieulay: about as safe a bicycle store as you could ever wish for.

Day Two Calais to Abbeville

134.42 km (83.5 miles)

1,234m (4,049 feet) ascent

6.15 hours

This began with the collection of bikes from the Fort and our introduction to the ISE (International Sport Event) team who were to accompany us from Calais to Paris. This team comprised four cars and a dozen motorcycles, the latter being ridden by ex-gendarmes who earlier this summer has escorted the Tour de France. I freely admit that I was over-excited about the outriders and chatted to them. They were warm, friendly and completely into their BMW bikes.

Our first ceremony was in Calais, soon after 8am. The Deputy Mayor, with special focus on sport, welcomed us to the town in a short speech which was followed by the laying of a wreath by Lieutenant General James Bashall CBE CB. Five minutes earlier I’d seen ‘Bash’ as everyone on the trip referred to him, in his RBL lycra. There he was in a dark suit laying a poppy wreath and speaking the Exhortation from Binyon’s poem For the Fallen. You know the words so well. ‘They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.’ Alongside the general and the Deputy Mayor were two standard bearers: one from the town of Calais, the other from the Hertfordshire branch of the Legion. He, Paul, is the man who now has 24 Pedal to Paris under his belt and he does it on a recumbent bike with a huge union flag attached to a pole behind him. As the General finished the Exhortation, Paul repeated it in French. It was a powerful moment.

Paul Harding, veteran of 24 Pedal to Paris rides, with the RBL Hertfordshire Standard at Calais memorial

After the ceremony we gathered in front of the Town Hall where Lewis, our superb cheer-leader, organised us into three groups. The so-called Social Group would ride of first, followed 15 minutes later by Group 2 and 15 minutes after that Group 1 would sally forth. I had been advised earlier this year that Group 2 was a comfortable place to be as the speed was good but there was still time for conversation. Group 1 was for the super-speedy guys who wanted to ride in a proper peloton. The Social Group left at 9am and we divided into Groups 2 and 1. It looked as if everyone bar about six cyclists wanted to be in Group 2 so Lewis drew a line half way through the group and Chris, Simon and I ended up cycling with the back section which included the speedy guys.

A Group prepares to leave Calais Town Hall. Paul Harding, now in his cycling kit, can be seen on his recumbent bike with flag

Rolling out of Calais with our fabulous outriders halting traffic at every road junction was about as thrilling as it gets. Thirty of us poured in a liquid stream of cycling energy around corners, over crossroads, around round-abouts and out into the beautiful hilly countryside of the Pas de Calais. We were cycling over ground that had been trodden by millions of soldiers – both French and British – in the First World War and that just added to the sense of history that surrounded us all day.

The riding was great and the pace hot, which was fine until we hit a big hill and then I realised that what I saw as a wall the speedy riders saw as a minor rise. By lunchtime my legs were throbbing, and I decided that I wanted to be in a proper Group 2, not the souped-up version. Fortunately, others felt the same. Lunchtime was a buffet of baguettes made locally. We were told there were 37 different fillings on offer. They were delicious.

After lunch we went straight into the first hill, known in our ride brochures as Baguette Hill. We’d read about this in the forward planning emails but any amount of googling had left us none the wiser. It was only when we set off that we were told it was the nickname for the hill that came immediately after a lunch of baguettes on day 2 and that it was a test for us riding on full tummies. Predictably I found it very tough but soldiered on and spent the next 180 minutes riding some 72km (45 miles) without stopping. Our driver had failed to make the mid-afternoon break.

Preparing to leave Crecy-en-Ponthieu for Abbeville as one group

When we did finally stop in the beautiful village of Crécy-en-Ponthieu it took two ice lollies and three litres of water before I was able to concentrate on Dan’s short talk about the site of the Battle of Crécy in 1346, one of the earliest and most important battles of the Hundred Years’ War. From there we cycled as one group into Abbeville making the transition from countryside to urban streets with consummate ease thanks to our outriders. By now we all knew the commands for slowing down, speeding up, avoiding potholes. And then comes the ‘Stopping’ command. That was very welcome at the end of a long day.

Day Three Abbeville to Beauvais

107.34 km (67.14 miles)

751m (2,467 feet) ascent

4.59 hours

Abbeville War Memorial was the site of another moving ceremony at the beginning of day 3

The ceremony at the Abbeville War Memorial was attended by more standard bearers than the one in Calais. I was moved not only by the First World War standards but by those from the Second World War. One marked the ‘Prisoners 1939-1945’ which caught me out. France and Britain’s experiences of that war were poles apart. It made the wreath laying even more poignant.

We began the cycling with a steep climb which was painful on tired legs and I was glad I was in Group 2. The countryside was glorious: undulating roads through fields of corn, tobacco and sunflowers. Occasionally you would spot our tireless photographer disguised in a patch of sunflowers or lurking behind a signpost. His white motorcycle helmet was a giveaway and we always waved to him cheerfully even if our legs were burning at the top of a hill.

Our lunch spot on day 3 was in a sports stadium. There, on the sand, Dan created a reinterpretation of the Western Front during the First World War, using cyclists to represent the Allies and the Axis powers. He made them stand two steps apart and then talked us through every significant gain and loss on the Front. Each time one of them would be asked to step forward or back to mark a battle. What struck everyone was how little ground was fought over and what devastating losses and destruction resulted from that terrible war.

The make-up of the cyclists was biased heavily in favour of men. I’m not sure how many women there were but I would hazard a guess at about 10% (so 12-15 of us). That seemed to me to be not dissimilar from the make up of men to women in the First World War. We often forget how many women stepped up in both world wars to do their bit. On the Home Front from 1914-1918 hundreds of thousands of women worked in munitions factories and in men’s jobs on the trams, railways and in other roles. Then there were the female doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and auxiliaries who worked in the dressing stations and hospitals in France and further afield in other theatres of the war.

In the Second World War women were active in uniform, albeit at a distance from the fighting. They worked on radar, on coding at Bletchley Park as well as nurses and ambulance drivers. Some flew planes from factories to airfields. And a sizeable number worked with the Special Operations Executive. I thought the story of Nancy Wake, known by the Germans as the White Mouse, might inspire the women cyclists. She was part of the French Resistance in Southern France during the battle for the liberation in 1944. Desperate to file a report for SOE HQ in London, but unable to make contact via radio, Nancy Wake grabbed a bicycle and claimed to have ridden some 172 miles in 24 hours. She said afterwards: ‘That part of my anatomy which is meant to give pleasure was on fire. I could neither sit nor stand for two days.’ That chimed with some of us. Imagine doing that distance on an old-fashioned bike without gel shorts, comfortable cycling shoes and under the constant threat of attack.

The steep hill after lunch. Not my speediest on hills but I made it

After lunch, and the inevitable steep hill to concentrate the mind, we sped across the countryside to the village of Auchy-la-Montagne where the village (population c. 570) had put on a magnificent welcome for us. As we entered Auchy we saw signs saying: ‘Welcome English Friends’ and ‘Auchy is Happy to Meet You.’ As we rounded the corner into a little area next the park and opposite the Mairie we saw gazebos with tables laden with cups of local wine and sweets, while members of the village’s veterans’ association waved us in, some holding flags.

This lovely village has welcomed the Pedal to Paris caravan every year and this time they presented the President with a huge cup to mark the 25^th anniversary. The mayor was unable to attend but his representative told the story of the liberation of Auchy-la-Montagne in 1944 by the British 8th Army. The mayor is known to have said in the past: ‘we prefer you on your bicycles than in tanks.’ Two children were on the local council to give their age group a voice in local politics. They made a request to the RBL: could we find them an old-fashioned British telephone box that they could use as a library for book exchanges in the future. The general threw down the gauntlet to the cyclists to see if anyone could help. Let us hope someone can.

With hearts warmed by the welcome and the excellent rosé we pedalled off as a group to Beauvais for a ceremony at the war memorial. There was a sizeable crowd gathered in the park around the memorial already and we saw standard bearers from several veterans’ groups with a gap for Paul Harding. Like the General, Paul made a lightening change out of his lycra and into the uniform of an RBL Standard Bearer.

The Mayor of Beauvais made a speech in French and English. He spoke of the collaboration between the Allies in the First World War. We had already been reminded by Dan that the French lost more men in 1914 than the British did in the entire war. Here we were, facing the Beauvais memorial, contemplating that appalling statistic. The mayor then talked about the Second World War when Beauvais had been invaded by the Germans. The British 8^th Army liberated the town on 30 August 1944 and the mayor expressed the town’s enduring gratitude to their liberators. It was a humbling moment.

Beauvais had been extensively damaged during both wars and much of the older part of the city was all but destroyed. The cathedral was rebuilt in the ensuing years and as we cycled past it after the ceremony it was hard not to be moved by the resilience of this magnificent city.

Day Four – Beauvais to Paris

96.86 km (60.18 miles)

883.92 m (2,900 feet) ascent

4.40 hours

The Social Group leave Beauvais Fire Station where our bikes had been stored

The final day of the ride seemed to entail a lot of climbing. The weather had warmed up and it was with some considerable relief that we cycled into the aptly named village of Menucourt for our last baguette lunch of the ride. From there we set off as a single group for the last 40km (25 miles) to Paris. We were given strict instructions not to attempt to overtake other cyclists on this leg and to follow the car as closely as we could, especially once in Paris.

Group 1 race past our pit stop on the last day. They averaged over 24 mph and that with hills.

This was the moment when the motorcycle outriders were at their most brilliant. The closer we got to the capital the greater the number of cars on the roads and the larger the junctions. Sometimes we found ourselves streaming down the slow lane of a dual carriageway with cars zipping past us at high speed, but never once did we feel vulnerable. Our outriders had our backs and motorists who did not play fair were subject to gesticulations and whistles to keep them in place.

The last stop as we group to cycle into Paris. What anticipation

Entering Paris via St Germain-en-Laye, which occupies a large loop of the River Seine, we were now less than 20km from the Arc de Triomphe. This lovely suburb has a surprising link to the United Kingdom. In 1688 James II, King of England and VII of Scotland, exiled himself to the city where he remained for the final three years of his life. We crossed the Seine for the first and second times and headed towards the city centre itself. As we rounded the Place de la Porte Maillot we shouted ‘cobbles!’ Suddenly we were on the Avenue de la Grande Armée and there, in the near distance, the Arc de Triomphe. Tired legs, sore backsides, aching arms and bruised feet all vanished as we sped up the cobbles towards the Arc and over to a layby next to Avenue Foch.

Lewis and the wonderful RBL team greeted us with cheers and whistles ushering us to safety and towards a table with bottles of beer. It was a remarkable feeling and I am not sure I remember seeing so many smiling sweaty faces on one small patch of ground as I did that afternoon. We parked our bikes, took endless photographs and then made our way over the Avenue Foch to a tunnel which led us under the Charles de Gaulle Etoile and the entrance to the Arc de Triomphe itself. Currently the monument is in the process of being wrapped up for a Christo installation which gave it an even more wonderful air of grandeur.

As we lined up in two rows either side of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier I had to blink hard not to let roll the tears of overwhelming emotion. Bash had once again, and for the last time on this trip, donned his dark suit and morphed into Lieutenant General James Bashall CBE CB, President of the Royal British Legion, which marked its centenary in May 2021. A representative of the mayor’s office gave a speech about the significance of the Unknown Soldier, the idea for which predates our British Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey by four years. This soldier represents the silent voice of all those lost in war and of Remembrance. Behind us we could see the Champs Elysées, the glorious rooftops of Paris and above us the blue sky and sunshine that had accompanied us all that last day.

After the wreath-laying we sang the National Anthem and the Marseillaise, whose words we had all learned (a bit) over the last few days. And then it was over. A girl standing next to me asked me to tell her what the French official had said in his speech. As I explained what it all meant the tears began to flow. I could not stop them. Everything about the ride, from the moment we conceived of the possibility of doing it, through the long hours of winter training, to the uncertainty of whether the RBL could even stage the ride given the pandemic, to the glorious moment at lunchtime on that day when I realised I, we, were going to make it. I have not cried like that for a very long time. We had witnessed something very special and each of us had gained a personal achievement.

“Here lies a French soldier who died for his country 1914-1918”

Pedal to Paris 2021 – 25th Anniversary Ride

Posted on September 7, 2021September 10, 2021 by Julie Summers

A Previous Pedal to Paris – something to focus the mind upon during the build up to 2021

The night before we left Eltham Palace on the first leg of the Pedal to Paris, I promised myself and the press team at the Royal British Legion that I would write a daily blog of the expedition. Naively I thought I would be able to get to the hotels and bash out an account of the day’s highs and lows. I managed no such thing. The ride was so all consuming of time, energy and emotion that there was no way I could have done anything other than write a list of things we achieved on any individual day and slump on my bed.

Pedal to Paris is more than a cycle ride. It is an experience and an institution in its own right. I knew that, but I didn’t really understand it until we were half-way through the first day. Although few of the cyclists in 2021 were veterans or serving members of the Armed Forces, the sense of respect for how the Royal British Legion supports the Armed Services Community was there from the get-go. We realised that we were part of a very special party that would form its own bubble, and not only for Covid reasons.

That the Events team had managed to pull off Pedal to Paris in 2021 is a remarkable feat in its own right. Against the odds they made it not only work, but work very well. In addition to the organisers and volunteers who were to follow in support of every aspect, from nutrition to mechanical assistance (which sometimes combined), we had an outstanding historian, Dan Hill. He helped to bring alive the history of the countryside we were riding through, and it added a rich dimension to our journey.

The RBL President, Lt General James Bashall CBE CB lays a wreath at the War Memorial in Calais

One of the unique features of Pedal to Paris is the ceremonial laying of wreaths in the places we spent the nights. These towns, Calais, Abbeville, Beauvais and Paris, have immensely important history over centuries. But they also have a link with Britain as a result of the two World Wars and that was what we were to mark with ceremonies at their war memorials. The RBL leads the nation in Remembrance each November, but it is involved in Remembrance all year round and this was one example of the respect accorded to our shared history.

We were very fortunate to have the President of the Royal British Legion, Lt General James Bashall CBE CB, on the ride with us. This was his second Pedal to Paris, accompanied by his wife, Sarah-Lucie. Every time we arrived at a memorial for a ceremony, ‘Bash’ as he was known to the riders, leapt off his bike and changed out of his RBL lycra and into a dark suit. It was a reminder of the respect for the fallen and the importance of Remembrance to the Armed Services Community.

A few facts to end this introduction to the day-to-day blog that follows. The Royal British Legion was founded in May 1921 with three main responsibilities which it still has: Remembrance, Welfare and Campaigning on behalf of the Armed Services Community. In 1921 the size of that community was approximately 20 million men, women and children. Today it stands at 6.5 million. Every year the annual Poppy Appeal, which began in 1921, raises some £54 million for the Legion’s welfare programmes. The RBL spends £106 million a year on welfare, including running six care homes for veterans.

circa 1921: Ex-civil servants on a protest parade with sandwich boards in Whitehall, London. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

By the time we left London the total money raised by the Pedal to Paris riders was £260,000. There were 150 riders including a dozen Ride Captains. The total distance covered was 459 kilometres (285 miles) with over 3,500 metres (11,840 feet) of climbing in four days. And just for fun, the average value of the bikes on the ride was £4,000. We know that because we had to fill out carnets for each bike as a result of Europe post-Brexit.

Pedal to Paris was a personal challenge for me. I turned 60 in October 2020 and wanted to do something to mark that big anniversary. Chris agreed to join me, and we spent last autumn and the whole of this year training for the ride. Simon turned 30 the same month so we gave him the opportunity to join the ride as a birthday present. I have not taken part in a long-distance cycle ride before, but I can honestly say that I loved everything about Pedal to Paris and I am so glad I chose to do it.

What follows this blog is the day-to-day story that I had promised myself I would write up each night. You can follow the rides themselves on our Strava trackers if you are so inclined. You will find them here on our Just Giving Page https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/teamsteeley?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=teamsteeley&utm_campaign=pfp-tweet&utm_term=4671b54f27e641418b6c2d2999b5b49c

Zero Hour for Pedal to Paris

Posted on September 7, 2021September 7, 2021 by Julie Summers

We’ve arrived at Eltham and are ready to leave for Paris tomorrow at 6:00am. From where I’m sitting now it all feels a bit overwhelming. Will we be able to cope with six hours a day in the saddle? Will we be the oldest cyclists? Probably not but up there with the others who have senior rail cards.

Our journey from Oxford was not uneventful. Although we will only be carrying small packs on the ride, we had to get our rucksacks with all the kit, gel packs etc from home to Eltham via two trains and three cycle rides, one through the West End of London. Why, do you ask, did we not take our car as there is ample parking here? Well, we’re now car free, having sold our Skoda in May as we were finding less and less use for it in Oxford. And we thought it was greener to try to use public transport where possible.

So off we set, at the crack of midday, wobbling dangerously with our 14kg rucksacks on our lovely lightweight bikes. At just after 4:15pm we arrived at the Premier Inn and checked ourselves and our bikes into the room. The receptionist didn’t blink an eye when we wheeled the Ribbles through the hall and into the lift. As these bikes are our best friends for the next four days they deserve five star treatment. Also, it would be a bit inconvenient if they were pinched.

Tomorrow we cycle from Eltham Palace to Dover and then catch the ferry to Calais. If I can still sit I will do as promised and write a short blog about our Day One in the saddle.

A Bientot!

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/teamsteeley

Destination Dover by mid-afternoon tomorrow (this was 2019)

Men on the Move: The Royal British Legion at 100

Posted on April 15, 2021April 15, 2021 by Julie Summers

I mentioned in a previous blog that one of the things that struck me about the Royal British Legion was the age of its membership around the time of its formation. Rather like the Women’s Institute when it was set up in 1915 with its members average age of 24 years old, the Legion’s profile was young. Many of the men who had returned injured during and after the First World War were in their twenties. Some had missed out on education and apprenticeships as a result of conscription. What these men wanted more than handouts or sympathetic support was a job. The Legion was active in helping tens of thousands of men to find work after the war but there was a cohort of disabled men for whom it was much more difficult to find employment. Sometimes their disabilities meant they were physically unable to undertaken manual work. A man who had suffered a spinal injury or who had lost a limb would not be able to work in a factory or in agriculture, but he needed a job.

The Legion knew that nothing was more demoralising for a man who had returned injured to be told he could not work. It worked hard on many fronts but none more so than for these men. The Poppy Factory, one of the Legion’s best-known and popular undertakings helped thousands of men and families over the years offering employment and support. It still does. Poppy making is a year-round business and although the busiest period is in the run up to Remembrancetide, there is a permanent workforce at the factories in Richmond and Aylesford who keep the poppies and wreaths pouring off the production line.

Men working at the Poppy Factory 1930s (c) Poppy Factory Archive

Working on wreaths at the Poppy Factory in Richmond, 2020 (c) Royal British Legion/Gavin Kingcombe

A less well-known project is the car park attendant scheme. It may not strike you as the most exciting thing that you have ever heard of but bear with me. By the late 1920s the motor car had become a familiar sight on Britain’s road. Of the roughly 2 million vehicles in circulation, just under half were privately owned cars. That meant that people could take use their cars for leisure journeys, such as eating out, going to the cinema or shopping. A horrible side-effect of increased motoring was high road fatalities. In 1934 over 7,000 people were killed in car-related accidents, with pedestrians being half of the victims. Put into context, there were 38.7 million vehicles registered on Britain’s roads in 2019 and the road deaths totalled 1,870.

Some of the most dangerous places were town and city streets. With no official car parking in place, apart from in London, motorists simply left their cars where they wanted, regardless of how dangerous that might be to fellow road users and pedestrians. Councils realised that something had to be done and in 1927 the Rochdale South Branch of the Legion set the ball rolling. They agreed with the town council that in exchange for a rent-free piece of land they would employ two disabled men to run the first town car park. Rochdale Council let the Legion erect a hut and the two men, in attendants’ uniforms, manned the carpark on behalf of the town. This was so successful that it was repeated in towns and seaside resorts all over the country. It thrived after the Second World War and by 1960 the Car Park Attendants Scheme employed over 3,000 men. Today carparks are generally automated but spare a thought when you leave your vehicle in a little car park tucked away behind a municipal theatre or town market-place: it was probably first run by a disabled veteran supported by the Legion.

Men inspecting a taxi at the London Taxi School (c) Getty Images

We all know about London taxi drivers whose knowledge of the metropolis within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross is so great that they are known to have a larger and more developed hippocampus than the rest of us mortal souls. Did you know, however, that at one stage a third of all London cabbies had been through the British Legion’s London Taxi School? I, for one, did not, so thought it worth exploring. The School opened its doors in 1928 and was available to ex-Servicemen. It was particularly popular amongst those with spinal injuries who could not stand for long periods or operate heavy machinery. The idea came from Lieutenant General Sir Edward Bethune who was a veteran of the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-80, the First and Second Boer Wars, and the First World War. He believed that men who had learned to drive during the war would be suitable students. The scheme was supported by the Legion’s Honorary Treasurer, Sir Jack Brunel Cohen MP, who had lost both his legs in 1917. He and Sir Edward succeeded in getting Lord Nuffield to donate a taxi for training purposes.

14th October 1947: Mr Turner briefs prospective taxi drivers on bicycles at taxi school at Harleyford Street, Kennington. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

The Taxi School was run by the Legion, who paid for a third of the costs, the remaining two thirds being covered by the government. The training was arduous, taking at least 12 months and often longer with men going out day after day, week after week, on bicycle or on foot, notebooks in hand, noting routes and “points” where taxis are usually picked up. Fred Marks, who completed the course in 1947, wrote about his experiences: ‘When at long last the Carriage Office is satisfied [with your knowledge] then comes your driving test – a stiff one. You are directed into a narrow back street and told to turn your cab around. A private motorist would do it in 20 movements, perhaps. You must do it in three.’ Remember, readers, this is pre-power steering, so not an easy feat. The Legion’s London Taxi School ran for 67 years. By the time it closed its doors in 1995 over 5,000 men had passed the famous Knowledge and the stringent driving test to become a London cab driver.

There is still a connection today. Any ex-Serviceman or woman who is scheduled to attend the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in London in November can hail a participating Poppy Cab at one of the agreed points around the capital and find him or herself transported there and back for free. The cost of this service is supported by the Legion, which gives the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans an annual grant. It is one of the most popular ways of helping veterans to get to and from the Cenotaph. The taxi drivers, some of whom had been through the Legion’s Taxi School, see it as a way to pay back part of the debt owed to the veterans old and young.

One way and another the Royal British Legion has helped to keep veterans on the move for over a century and in a way that we, the public, have all benefited from.

Count Down to a Centenary

Posted on March 15, 2021March 15, 2021 by Julie Summers

Two months from now, on 15 May 2021, the Royal British Legion will celebrate its 100^th anniversary. Born out of the ashes of the First World War, the Legion was the amalgamation of several ex-Services organisations, all fighting on behalf of those wounded, disabled, widowed or orphaned by war. Over the last century the Legion has become part of the British cultural landscape. Remembrance and the Poppy are its most recognisable features but there is so much more to this great organisation as I discovered while working on a book for its centenary. I am going to celebrate the RBL in a monthly blog leading up to 15^th May with a few behind-the-scenes stories.

In October 2019 the Royal British Legion commissioned me to work on a book to be published in May 2021. Of course I had no inkling that I would have to write it under pandemic conditions. When the first lockdown was introduced in March 2020 many people assumed that writers had never had it so good. With no distractions such as travel to book festivals or teaching commitments, we were surely in a uniquely wonderful position to write. Weeks, possibly months of forced isolation stretched ahead – a writer’s dream. As with so many dreams, the reality turned out to be very different. Living in forced isolation was one thing, but being deluged by grim headlines and worse death figures daily, plus the lingering fear of an invisible enemy in our midst, it was far from the utopian quiet that writers crave.

A selection of the Legion’s *Journal*, bound annually. Note the tiny volumes from the Second World War years thanks to paper rationing

But I had a deadline. The first draft of my book was due to be handed over to the publishers in September. My problem was that from early March I had no access to Haig House in London’s Borough High Street, where the Legion’s archive material is stored. Nor could I get to libraries or Legion branches. Everything would have to be done remotely and that required a radical rethink of my usual working methods. Those who know me well are aware that I am happiest when ferreting around in old paper files, reading last century’s news and talking to archivists whose passion it is to preserve our nation’s memory.

One stroke of luck occurred in late May when it was briefly possible to gain access to Haig House. I was able to procure a number of bound copies of the Legion’s Journal, their monthly magazine, dating back to 1921.

The first British Legion journal, July 1921

I could not have the full set so I was invited to take a stab at the years I thought would be of greatest significance to me. Quite the challenge so I chose 32 volumes between 1921 and 1972 which included anniversary years 1931, 1941, 1951, 1961 and 1971 as well as all the volumes from the Second World War, which were tiny owing to the shortage of paper. There was also an important photograph album from the Legion’s peace visit to Germany in 1935 which I also requested.

The operation to secure this valuable material was undertaken in the form of a heist. My officer son was dispatched to Haig House to collect the journals and was alarmed to be handed a large red album with a swastika on the front. Being inscrutable he did not flinch, but he did express his surprise when he arrived home in Oxford with his precious cargo. With the exception of one or two volumes that might have been useful, these monthly magazines in their beautiful leather bindings, gave me as much information as I could possibly have needed for the potted history of the Legion I had been asked to write.

What I had not expected from the Journals was the rich picture they offered of life in Britain in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, especially for those disabled by their war service. Yet these magazines were far from depressing. They were uplifting. The energy behind the early founders of the Legion was remarkable and the men and women who worked as grass roots level in the branches that sprang up around the country no less so. This was a young man’s organisation. The Legion’s first chairman was in his early thirties, many of the men on branch committees in their twenties. They were not grandees – although Field Marshal Haig and Edward, Prince of Wales gave the leadership clout with the government when needed – they were ordinary men and women who cared passionately about making post-First World War Britain a better place. And help was much needed.

Over 6 million men had served during the First World War, of whom 1.1 million were killed, including 350,000 from overseas, and some 1.75 million wounded. Of that latter number over half were permanently disabled. Widows, orphans, families of the wounded, the disabled and the unemployed all needed the Legion’s support. At that stage, the Legion estimated it had responsibility for up to 20 million people and it relied, in the main, on its volunteer army of members and officers to carry out the welfare help required.

The Royal British Legion is an organisation with a big heart and it has been the joy of writing this book to lift the lid on the myriad ways the Legion has made so many people’s lives better. From facing down the government on pensions and war disability payments to helping veterans with physical and mental health problems the Legion never gives up. It works day in, day out and the work it does really matters. It saves lives.

Over the next weeks and months, you will read and hear a lot about the Royal British Legion as it celebrates its centenary. I am very proud to have been a part of sharing that story, particularly the early years when the vital groundwork was laid. Watch out for my next couple of blogs when I will lift the lid on some of the less well-known aspects of the organisation most of us think of only around Remembrance Sunday.

We Are The Legion will be published by Profile Books, 6 May 2021

The Cost of War

Posted on May 8, 2020March 14, 2021 by Julie Summers

Today is Friday 8 May 2020, the 75^th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe. Seventy-five years ago today the costliest war in history was finally drawing to a close, though its end would not come until 15 August 1945 when the Japanese Imperial Army surrendered unconditionally. Costliest in terms of lives – historians estimate 60 million men, women and children, military and civilian, lost their lives. A generation of children had grown up knowing nothing but war as the backdrop to their lives. In Britain, those children at least had more or less enough to eat. In Nazi-occupied Europe whole families were starving while further afield the famine in Bengal cost the lives of 3 million people. Costliest in terms of economic damage – Britain was almost bankrupt as a result of the war. And costliest in terms of its impact on society. Hitler had boasted the German Reich would last for 1,000 years. It went on for 12 long, destructive years but the impact of it has lasted for eight decades and it will go on for many more.

Today we have been celebrating and commemorating those brave men and women who fought for Britain abroad and on the Home Front. We have heard extraordinary stories from veterans, like the Jamaican, Alan Wilmot who flew with air-sea rescue, saving up to 17,000 lives, or Donald Hunter who sailed with the Merchant Navy from the age of 16. There have been tributes from people who were children at the end of the war. Everyone spoke with warmth of their memories of that special day, but few mentioned what had happened after VE Day was over.

The morning of 9^th May 1945 was another bank holiday. Britain woke up with a national hangover and probably a few sore heads too. Barbara Cartland, then 44 years of age, summed up the feelings of many of her generation:

‘We were glad, but still our hearts refused to sing, the shadow of war still lay over us in a restriction of freedom, in controls and coupons. We had only to look at our empty larders, empty store cupboards and half empty coal cellars to know war had not receded very far from our daily lives. To practically everyone in Great Britain the war had brought the loss of someone they loved – either man, woman or child – and for many there were crippled bodies or blinded eyes as a legacy from the nights of terror and fire.’
Barbara Cartland The Years of Opportunity 1939-1945

Dame Barbara Cartland in ATS uniform, c. 1942

Twelve years ago I wrote a book called Stranger in the House that looked at the impact of returning servicemen and women on life at home. It was at times a heart-breaking book to research and I wrote several of the stories weeping onto my keyboard. I know that it affects readers too: my friend John wrote to me only this week to say that he has never cried so many times over a book as over that one. Am I sorry? No, not really. These are human stories that needed to be told. We have to understand the cost of war. It is not possible to gloss over the inconvenient truths, the ugly aspect of readjusting to life after war and to imagine that all the veterans are great heroes who shrugged off the impact of what they did and saw. They did not. They could not. Some will never be able to stop the memories coming back. And that applies to young men and women who in the more recent past have taken up arms on behalf of Britain in conflicts all over the world. They cannot be unaffected by what they witness.

At the moment I am writing a book for the Royal British Legion’s centenary in 2021. Once again, I am reminded of the enormous cost of war and the extraordinary efforts that people go to in order to try and alleviate the pain and distress returning service personnel and their families suffer. The story of the Legion is the story of our country’s twentieth and now twenty-first century wars and the impact they have had on our society. The Legion helped to shape Remembrance, it is a peaceful, peace loving organisation and it has a most generous welfare programme. It has fought for pensions, disability rights and widows’ allowances for 99 years and it is not going to be giving up any time soon.

As I work through the research I am reminded, daily, of the terrible situations faced by men coming home from the First World War. 2,300,000 ex-service personnel returned injured or disabled to a Britain that was suffering from an economic decline, that did not have the jobs, housing or welfare for them. The Legion had an enormous job on its hands to help those affected by the war, including hundreds of thousands of widows, orphaned children, the sick, disabled and unemployed. But it set about the task with impressive energy and focus. The Legion changed many things over the first twenty years of its existence and one of those was the way returning men were treated. By 1945 there was a better, more humane system in place. But even they cannot make the nightmares, the feelings of dislocation and the difficulties of settling down as a family go away. That has, eventually, to come from the individuals and their families.

In my most recent book, Dressed for War, the emphasis was on Audrey Withers’ life and on her energy and courage during the darkest days of the 1940s. Yet even in that book there is a major casualty of war. Her star photojournalist, the brilliant, brave and tireless Lee Miller, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder in the post-war era. She never really recovered her equilibrium. She was one of thousands who suffered, many silently, from the impact of their wartime experiences.

So, without wanting to throw a bucket of cold water on the celebrations around VE 75, I just think it is worth remembering that war has a far-reaching impact on everyone involved.

Home Fires Season 2 Episode 4 Love and Sex in Times of War

Posted on April 20, 2017 by Julie Summers

‘If you put men and women together in close proximity in a danger shared, a mutual attraction is not only the inevitable result, it is what we should expect, and we should be very surprised and perturbed from a national point of view if it wasn’t.’ Thus wrote the English novelist, Barbara Cartland in 1945. As a welfare officer for the women’s services during the Second World War she was warm, generous and young people responded to her: ‘No one has ever minded when I have talked to them, and I’ve been both personal and intrusive. Being a novelist helps. I don’t know why, but people always want to confide in novelists, and the other thing which I believe makes everything alright is the fact that I am sincere. I do believe what I say.’ There were those in society who judged young people who got into trouble and condemned them but Cartland thought that was unfair and wrong. They were young, in love, in danger and in a hurry.

From today’s perspective it is difficult to imagine or understand the stigma caused by extramarital affairs or illegitimate children. For both men and women during the war there was a sense that living for today was fine because tomorrow you might die and this spilled over into behaviour which to some seemed reprehensible but which to others was inevitable and not even particularly surprising. ‘War Aphrodisia’ was traditionally ascribed to men in battle and was a well-recognised condition. In total war, as the Second World War undoubtedly was for Britain and mainland Europe, a hedonistic impulse reached many other segments of society. Later in the war the American GIs turned many heads and over 60,000 GI brides made their way to the New World in the immediate aftermath of the Second War. But that is all in the future.

The emancipation of women in Britain after the First World War had led, briefly, to a more liberated attitude towards fashion and behaviour. One commentator wrote: ‘Women bobbed their hair, donned short skirts, smoked in public and wore the heavy makeup which had formerly been the attribute of the harlot.’ The seeds of emancipation had been sown and the flame was fanned hardest in the USA where the combination of a buoyant stock market, bootleg gin and the racy novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald fuelled the frenetic pace of the social revolution.

imgres — ‘Jazz babies’ in Hollywood, 1927

Hollywood played its part, producing erotic films for a mass audience and elevating the leading stars to almost legendary status. Audiences flocked to films such as Alimony (1917), which promised ‘brilliant men, beautiful jazz babies, champagne baths, midnight revels, petting parties in the purple dawn, all ending in one terrifying climax that makes you gasp.’ The Great Depression put a stop to much of this and divorce rates in Britain plunged along with the stock market, reaching a low in 1933, down 40% from the 1928 level. The number of weddings also fell.

The circumstances of total war changed both attitudes and opportunities: ‘We were not really immoral, there was a war on,’ explained one British housewife. The ‘what the heck I could be dead tomorrow’ attitude of some of the fighter pilots, for example, brought many couples together and hastily arranged marriages, with often only forty-eight hours to spend together, were not uncommon. Few couples could consider what would happen after the war, when life might return to normal. They lived for that day and perhaps the next. ‘They were loved and beloved, and by this stage in the war love was about the only thing left unrationed.’

As we dig deeper into the fourth episode of HOME FIRES, war aphrodisia has reached Great Paxford. Electric tensions spark and shock around the village in the ferment of high drama. Pat’s nascent relationship with Marek has caused gasps and quickening heartbeats not just for careful observers like Erica, but for the rest of us watching on, agonising over her every move, desperate for her to duck and dive to avoid the eagle eye of Bob. How can she be so brave as to carry on her relationship with Marek while her deeply troubled husband is trying to exert his influence over her?

A contemporary description from a Manchester housewife in 1944 might throw some light on this: ‘There was nothing cheap about our affair, and if Rick had my body, my heart was with my husband and somehow I didn’t feel that I was doing anything wrong.’

Other relationships stop and start. Emotions that would normally have been ignored or suppressed, rise to the surface with a juvenile and intoxicating urgency. Some women find themselves almost out of their depth and exert a rigorous check on their emotions. Thanks to an intervention by Joyce Cameron in the last episode, Sarah Collingbourne is brought to an abrupt halt in her dalliance with the delightful, handsome and oh-so-eligible Wing Commander from RAF Tabley Wood.

But what of Miss Fenchurch? She might have danced with him at the Czech Camp but is there a chance of something in the future? Is Laura Campbell’s reputation going to blot out the early signs of love with Tom, the handsome young pilot who nobly stands up to the prissy but not-above-buying-black market-butter, Mrs Talbot? This fetid atmosphere of possibility belongs, of course, in a 9pm drama in 2016, but it accurately reflects the intoxicating atmosphere of the summer of 1940 when no-one knew what might happen next. The Second World War had entered a phase of unprecedented high stakes and it is not surprising that people reacted to it by questioning their tomorrow.

I am constantly excited and delighted by Simon Block’s brilliantly observed scripts. He has succeeded in chiming with the changing times. The pace of this series increases as the pace of the war did too. We never quite know what turn is to come next but when it comes it is both thrilling and fitting. Robert Quinn’s outstanding directing never lets us rest for a minute, yet it is not hurried. We are on the edge of our seats, as the country was in 1940. Home Fires is an all-round production with an exceptional cast, a superb production team and an energetic editorial and post-production set up that weaves the magic together as Samuel Sims’ music sprinkles the icing on the cake. Enjoy Sunday 23 April. It is a mesmerising episode.

The first section of this blog appeared in the USA in October 2015 and is an abridged version of a chapter in Stranger in the House, entitled Sex and Love in Times of War.

The Trouble with The Poppy

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Julie Summers

RANCOURT CEMETERY AND POPPIES, SOMME, FRANCE.EUROPE. THE WW1-1914-1918 CEMETERIES AND MEMORIALS MAINTAINED BY THE COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION. COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN HARRIS © 2006 0044(0)7808-579804-brianharrisphoto@ntlworld.com OR brian@brianharrisphotographer.co.uk — Rancourt Cemetery and Poppies, Somme © Brian Harris

I have been deeply frustrated and saddened by the, to me, farcical discussions between FIFA and the Football Association about the wearing of a poppy on a black armband on Armistice Day. Frankly no one has taken the trouble to look at the facts behind the poppy as a symbol of remembrance so here is a brief history lesson in the whole subject.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission was set up in May 1917 to commemorate, in perpetuity, the fallen of the Great War. It was needed because the repatriation of remains was impossible given the colossal numbers of the dead and cemeteries had sprung up all over France, Belgium and further afield on Gallipoli, in Greece, Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Egypt. Over 1,100,000 men from the United Kingdom and the British Empire died in the First World War and are commemorated by the CWGC in cemeteries and memorials all over the world. A further 800,000 came under their care after the Second World War. The numbers of dead from other countries in the Great War were even higher. France lost over two million, Germany over four million… It was death on a scale hitherto unimagined. The CWGC has from the very outset made no differentiation in its cemeteries and memorials between race, caste, creed or rank. The officers in all but the earliest cemeteries are buried alongside the men in equality. The headstones are marked with the symbol of the buried man or woman’s religion and if there was no religion then the headstone has no symbol. There would be no bar to any soldier, sailor or airman who died in the service of his or her country in the First, and later the Second World War, to CWGC commemoration.

Kirkee War Cemetery, Poona, India © Brian Harris

Along with the desire in Britain to commemorate the dead was an equal desire, post-war, to form some sort of ceremony. On the 11th November 1920 the first Remembrance Service took place in London. The occasion was to mark the return from the battlefields of the mortal remains of the Unknown Soldier who would be buried in Westminster Abbey in soil brought back from France. 2,000 people attended the service, the elements of which had quickly to be put together in a form that would be as equal in its regard for colour, creed and rank as the CWGC is in its memorials.

The two minute silence had been proposed in November 1919 and was ordered by the King to be held on 11th November 1919 at 11 o’clock. The Manchester Guardian described the scene:

The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect. The tram cars glided into stillness, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do it of their own volition. Someone took off his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads also. Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously into the posture of ‘attention’. An elderly woman, not far away, wiped her eyes, and the man beside her looked white and stern. Everyone stood very still … The hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city and become so pronounced as to impress one with a sense of audibility. It was a silence which was almost pain … And the spirit of memory brooded over it all.

The two minute silence is now a part of all Remembrance Day Services.

The poem, For the Fallen, by Lawrence Binyon, was written in 1914 in a reaction to the horrific high casualty numbers of the British Expeditionary Force. For the record, Binyon could not fight as he was too old but he volunteered at a British hospital for French soldiers. The poem was adopted as part of the Remembrance Day Service in 1920 and has been used ever since. The haunting second stanza has been claimed as a tribute to all casualties of war.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

The bugle call, Last Post, sounded at every Remembrance Day Service, is a military call that dates from the 17th century. It appears to have originated from British troops stationed in the Netherlands which drew on an old Dutch custom called taptoe from which we now have the expression Military Tattoo. But that is an aside. The taptoe signals the end of the day and itself came from the expression in Dutch that meant the beer taps had to be shut. The Dutch phrase is Doe den tap toe which means Close the Tap.

So far, so secular. And now to the poppy, this innocent flower that grows best in freshly turned soil. Poppies flowered in huge numbers all over the battlefields of France and Belgium adding a blast of colour to the decimated landscape torn up and freshly turned by the machines of war and the spades of the grave diggers. ‘There was a great profusion – beautiful it was – of wild flowers – poppies, cornflowers, white camomile and yellow charlock’ wrote Captain Parker, one of the CWGC’s first horticultural officers. In May 1915 a Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, was inspired by the sight of the poppies to write a poem in tribute to a friend who died at Ypres. In Flanders Fields immortalised the poppies among the graves:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

McCrae’s poem was published that year and it inspired an American academic, Moina Michael, to make and sell red silk poppies which were brought to England by a French woman. The Royal British Legion, which was formed in 1921, ordered 9 million of these poppies to sell on the 11 November of that year. They sold out almost immediately and raised over £106,000 or £28,000,000 in 2016. The money was used to help veterans with employment and housing. The following year ex-servicemen were employed to make poppies and the tradition has continued ever since.

couin-b-c — Wild flowers on the graves at Couin burial ground before the cemetery was taken over by the CWGC

There is nothing religious about any aspect of the core of the Remembrance Day Service, nor is there anything political about it. If you take the trouble to watch the service at the Cenotaph on Sunday 13 November you will see that the poppy laying, the poem and Last Post are a self-contained mini-ceremony before the religious prayers and the military parade.

So please, when you next hear bleating about the poppy being a religious or political symbol, just recall that it is, like the Commonwealth War Graves Commission itself, neutral. It represents remembrance of everyone who dies in war regardless of rank, creed, colour or caste. Like the lark in McCrae’s poem, the poppy is ‘above’ the noise of the guns below.

THIEPVAL MEMORIAL, SOMME, FRANCE. 11/02 COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION COPYRIGHT OWNED PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN HARRIS 0044 (0) 7808-579804 NO UNAUTHORISED USE WITHOUT PERMISSION — Poppies at Thiepval Memorial, Somme © Brian Harris