Very moving to think about the men who dug those trenches, and how nature has taken its course since. But still they are there…. A landscape memorial on the Common. Wonderful to read as always Jenny.
My childhood playground. Thank you for this Jenny. I knew the local history from my early years and we often played Roman Soldiers in the trenches. Maybe WW1 and 2 were too recent for us in the early 50's with Grandfathers, Fathers and Uncles who had fought.
I don't see children playing on the Common now - which is a pity as I'm sure that it was a marvellous place for generations of children to play.
I agree that the World Wars weren't 'history ' to our parents and grandparents. My mother (who was as a child in WW2) was upset to discover my children were learning about it in history at school. But also people didn't want to talk about it, as I remember, or only very selectively. This is a problem as a historian, now - when I was trying to research WW2 on the Common, I found no one has written a thorough history of that war in the area, and now those who could remember it are largely gone. I scraped something together from memoires but I think there is a lot more that could be researched and recorded.
Memories are written in the landscape, not just where memorials are erected. Thank you for remembering the fallen.
Beautiful writing Jenny. So much to think about from days and uses past.
Very moving to think about the men who dug those trenches, and how nature has taken its course since. But still they are there…. A landscape memorial on the Common. Wonderful to read as always Jenny.
So powerful, Jenny!
My childhood playground. Thank you for this Jenny. I knew the local history from my early years and we often played Roman Soldiers in the trenches. Maybe WW1 and 2 were too recent for us in the early 50's with Grandfathers, Fathers and Uncles who had fought.
I don't see children playing on the Common now - which is a pity as I'm sure that it was a marvellous place for generations of children to play.
I agree that the World Wars weren't 'history ' to our parents and grandparents. My mother (who was as a child in WW2) was upset to discover my children were learning about it in history at school. But also people didn't want to talk about it, as I remember, or only very selectively. This is a problem as a historian, now - when I was trying to research WW2 on the Common, I found no one has written a thorough history of that war in the area, and now those who could remember it are largely gone. I scraped something together from memoires but I think there is a lot more that could be researched and recorded.