Monday 8th September We flew from Manchester via Copenhagen to Bergen in Norway where we are sightseeing before tomorrow’s embarkation and departure of the Hurtigruten postal ship. Upon arrival we headed for Bryggen – the 16th century harbour of Bergen. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and consists of houses and within each domestic …
We travelled from the Somme to reach our ferry back to Dover. At the dockside this is what we saw. Having checked in we await our departure and explore the lorries and cars waiting to go onboard. This was the end of a very interesting and informative week.
We drove to Talmas to complete the photographs of an earlier visit. We were able to find a location we had previously missed and on driving to the next village came across a sunken lane that was sunk and flooded!!!! The next village Rubempre proved difficult. We were confident in one location but so many …
First visit of the day was to Morlancourt, a village used as a staging post for troops en route to the front at Thiepval. The scene below is the village in 1915/16, before the Battle of the Somme. We were doing the present day photograph outside the house on the immediate right of the above …
Arras was the site of many battles during the Great War. Much damage was done to the historic centre of the town which has now been rebuilt in the original style. We returned to the Arras Memorial in search of John Lisle. For years he was deemed to be missing in action, but recent research …
Our main task was to find the 49th (West Riding) Division Memorial. This is the remains of a second line of defines trenches and a dressing station of 1916/17. This was where the local battalions, such as 1/4 KOYLI, the Bradford Pals and others from West and South Yorkshire were amalgamated in 1915 to form …
First thing today we explored Bollezeele. We spoke to some local people about the old photographs and captured these images. This was a stopping off point for troops en route to the Ypres Salient. We headed north to Bergues, an ancient fortified town, which was an allied headquarters. This walled and gated town has small …
It is 9:00 p.m. and we have just eaten dinner in the Hostellerie Saint-Louis in Bollezeele (Nord), France, a small town that Grandad Partington stayed in during 1915 or 1916 prior to a battle at Ypres in Belgium. The hotel was originally a hospice but may have been a field station during the Great War. …
Our mission is to take the photographs from 1914/16 back to their locations and record present day. This is where we are staying on our first night and is in the village where grandfather stopped before the first battle of Ypres.