Somme
A hidden side of the Somme
Noticing via this Low Life column that I had trench fever, the Western Front Association treated me to a year’s…
A very annoying guide to the Somme battlefields
We arranged to meet the second, more expensive, guide of our Somme battlefield visit at the Thiepval Memorial visitor centre…
Walking the Somme
Where the 36th (Ulster) Division attacked at 7.30 a.m. on the first morning of the Battle of the Somme in…
Jam and Opium on the Somme
Phone calls aside, the only human contact I had on my ten-day Somme battlefield tour was with the lady who…
The beauty of military cemeteries
They are starting to cut the corn. But apart from combine harvesters and tractors, the roads up here on the…
My Great War obsession
Bernafay Wood B&B, Somme, France I came up on the TGV yesterday from the Midi to northern France and it…
The British army’s greatest catastrophe — and its most valuable lesson
Peter Parker spends 24 hours on the bloodsoaked battlefield of the Somme, scene of the British army’s greatest catastrophe
The Dickin Medal is a morally dubious piece of nonsense
Apparently, mice think that women are useless. I don’t mean that they think women mice are useless — they’re keen…
Brave Tommies and dim earls — Oh What a Lovely War is hoity-toity reductionism
Here it is. Fifty years late. Oh What a Lovely War was originally staged at Stratford East in 1964. It…
