In Flanders Fields

[trailertrash]

During January we visited The town of Ypres [ pronounced Leper ] in Belgium which was the focal point of 5 different battles of WW1. Armed with my map and satnav we toured the sights of the salient and [ as is my custom ] visited as many of the cemetery and monument sights as possible. Today its a beautiful area, so clean and green. A far cry from 1915 when its very core was being torn assunder by artillery fire. I went to the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate nightly and met the trumpeters, one of whom has missed only 1 Last Post in 20 years.

I was touched by the number of young people there on school trips and visits. Tyne Cot cemetery where 3 Victoria Cross holders are resting. It's the largest British War Grave in existance with over 11,000 resting there....over 8,000 have no name on their stone! The Australian 5th Division Memorial in Polygon Wood and the New Zealand Division Memorial nr Passchandale and the Canadian Division Memorial, all impressive reminders of the losses. Essex Farm where John McCrae penned the poem ' In Flanders Fields '

We also paid a visit to the German Cemetery at Langemark, and to my dismay found it untended and in poor repair. Withered wreaths littered the area and the footpaths were in dire need of maintainance. Over 24,000 are resting there with 42,000 names on the roles there. Some of the graves contain as many as 11 persons.

What touched me was that every time we turned a corner ...there was another Grave sight!

Small patches of ground now hold as few as 10 men in them and are tended lovingly by those responsible for them.

New graves are being added as the ground of the salient gives up her dead.

The trenches of hill 62 [ the British Front Line ] provided proof of the conditions of horror the men of both sides lived in. If there is a stairway to hell, it's into a trench!!

I hope you enjoy this presentation in the spirit it is intended. As a tribute to all men of all sides who fell in the horror of war....sadly it's still happening.

It can be found on beechbrook and thank you to Bill for hosting. [ and correcting my continual mistakes ]

http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/index.asp

Andrew

[fh1805]

Andrew,

A very evocative and moving tribute. The only comment I would make is that the final slide of credits vanished before I had time to read everything. To get an appropriate duration for slides containing text: time yourself reading the words out loud and set the slide duration to at least that amount of time.

I've been to Flanders several times, but never in the winter. I liked the light that you got. I must consider a winter trip myself.

regards,

Peter

[Ken Cox]

Peter et al

show has manual control

ken

[CorVdK]

Hello Andrew,

Very touching AV. Good pictures and well chosen music.

While on this subject many audio visuals are created, the implementation nevertheless is always different.

As you could experience, this part of the history will not be forgotten by the Belgians and quite right.

About the German Cemetery at Langemark I know there is another approach in the construction of the cemetery.

(translated from WESTHOEK.BE)

The vegetation is very sober. Designer Tischler wanted the cemetery to look as an oak woodland.

Therefore the cemetery is not "strict aligned" as the other cemeteries.

On the street side there are bushes with rhododendron and the footpath is leading between two hedges.

In the first half of the 1950 the governments of Belgium and Germany decided that only four German cemeteries

would remain: Hooglede (remained unchanged), and by the evacuations there was a strong expansion in

Vladslo, Langemark and Menen.

More than 9000 remains of identified bodies of 14 cemeteries in the vicinity of Langemark were transferred.

All "non-in-name-identified" from the whole Belgian territory were also transferred to Langemark.

(Therefore, there are several people in one grave).

Just for your information:

The city name Ypres is in French, also most commonly used in English. The English pronunciation = /'i:prə/

The town lies in the Dutch part of Belgium and his original name is Ieper, pronounced ['ipər].

Greetings,

Cor

[fh1805]

...show has manual control

Ken,

I cannot speak for others, but in my opinion, you are constantly missing the point about this.

If I wanted my audience to look at individual images I would not be producing AV sequences. But I don't want them to look at any of my sequences as just a string of individual images accompanied by some musak. I want my audience to view the sequence as a cohesive whole; in the same way that they would watch a movie at the cinema. That's the way I intend them to be viewed.

When viewing submitted sequences here on the forum, I do not check whether I have manual control over the sequence. I presume the author wanted me to watch it as a flowing sequence. That's what I do and that is the basis for my feedback. Andrew's sequence flowed beautifully - until that final image.

There has been plenty of recent discussion here on the forum about lack of constructive feedback. When someone does make a constructive suggestion, we get this kind of reaction from you.

regards,

Peter

[Ken Cox]

WELL PETER

if you had been paying attention you would have seen the video bar at the bottom the screen - it disappeared after 1-2 seconds - i mentioned it so that you could replay the show and read the details you missed

ken

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Come on lads, you are ruining the theme of the post

Yachtsman1.

[coopernatural]

Andrew,

Thanks for posting this and sharing your photos of a memorable visit.

The presentation worked well and I liked the video insert at the end.

The background information was appreciated along with the additional notes from Cor.

Well done,

Davy