D-Day 70.

For all I want for this to primarily be a First World War blog – one cannot forget that there are also other anniversaries to come, ones from different wars. On this day, the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, I have thought long and hard about posting something.

When it comes to days like today, I always struggle for what to say. Not because I don’t have anything to say, but because I have too much that I want to express and no adequate way of saying what I wish to verbalise. We owe a debt of gratitude to those who fought on the beaches that June day, and to those who did not come home, who were never again to see those white cliffs of Dover.

“Thank-you,” I believe, is a painfully inadequate phrase for all the things I wish I could say to the veterans that are still with us and to those who are not, and yet thanks is all I can express. So from the very bottom of my heart, thankyou.

We will never forget.

in the somme valley, the back of language broke -robert hughes

Minuscule update to say that I’m going to a talk this Saturday at Leeds central library with Richard van Emden and Andrea Hetherington. The focus is on the ‘families left behind’ and to follow there’s a British Future panel about the centenary of the First World War and whether or not it can bring us, as a nation, closer together. 

I will definitely post about this on my return and if you’re in Leeds, I encourage you to go; there are still tickets left here.

My exams are over now, which means I’ll be able to keep up a lot more with this blog. There has also been movement on the trip to France. We’re travelling down to London on the 23rd, crossing to Calais on the 24th and returning home on the 28th. We’ve already decided to visit two cemeteries, Rue-Petillon Military Cemetery and Serre Road Cemetery No. 2.

Expect lots of posts in the near future and thanks for reading and sticking with me through these last few, admittedly flaky updates.