| Remembering
the Bradford Pals |
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| Serre
Road Cemetery: "They shall not grow old ..." |
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Eighty-seven
years ago, in the middle of World War 1, on July 1st 1916, 2000
young men from Bradford left their trenches in Northern France to
advance across no man's land. It was the first hour of the first
day of the Battle of the Somme.
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ALSO |
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Sense
of Place
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POPPIES
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Scarlet
poppies grow naturally in conditions of disturbed earth.
The significance of the poppy as a lasting memorial symbol
to the fallen was realised by the Canadian surgeon John McCrae
in his poem In Flanders Fields.
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In
1974 a Â鶹Éç North crew accompanied some of the surviving Bradford
Pals on what was to be their last trip back to the Somme.
Ernest
Wilson talks about going home:
We weren't a nation of soldiers, you know. We
weren't a military nation at all but, of course, when the call
came, the response was great. A lot of us volunteered straight
away. Boys from offices, factories, volunteered immediately
and when we got home, of course, most of us wanted to forget
about the whole thing and, in any case, we wanted to settle
down to civilian life. A lot of us, of course, we hadn't finished
our apprenticeships, you know. We wanted to get on with work
and forget all about it. Naturally there were relatives and
friends that kept asking the question,'Where you captured so-in-so
Ernest? Well, you see, I think our Dad was killed somewhere
near there? Have you seen his grave?'
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