Maitland girl visits grave of her great, great grandmother’s partner in France ahead of Anzac Day
AS she looks around the rows of white headstones in France, Megan Cridland dabs away the tears as she finds the partner of her great, great grandmother
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AS she looks around the rows of white headstones and the 11,000 names on the wall, Megan Cridland dabs away the tears that she herself is surprised she is shedding.
The Maitland Grossmann High in NSW student turned 17 yesterday and before her are the headstones of young Australian men her age and younger.
Most emotionally, she found the headstone of S.T Bird, the partner of her great great grandmother who her nan had researched for the family.
He was killed in the early days of the Somme campaign in this largely flat land, then nothing more than a bomb-shelled mud flat but today fields of pretty yellow rapeseed flowers.
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The thought of a relative buried on the other side of the world is too much for the young student.
“He was just 19, that’s two years difference,” she said yesterday as she stood in the Australian National Memorial and military cemetery outside the Somme village of Villers Bretonneux in northern France having just found his headstone.
“It felt really good to find it . It was emotional. I’m not sure … I was just so overwhelmed. He was 19, I have just turned 17 today and I can’t believe that happened I’m lost for words. They were so strong and they fought for us and it was incredible what they did for us at such a young age some of them were 14, others 19 and I’m only two years off now, I can’t believe it.”
Yesterday hundreds of students made the pilgrimage to Villers Bretonneux as Australia will tomorrow mark Anzac Day and in this part of the world, 100 years of it entering the Somme and the European theatre of World War I.
The loss of life here was greater than Gallipoli, the sacrifice more recognised in history than any other but this year but a few will experience the emotion that is to hear a story, see the fields or find a long lost relative.
Organisers at this year’s Anzac Day commemorations in France had been expecting 6000 to 6500 visitors tomorrow and even had a contingency plan for a spill-over zone but the number for the Dawn Service and other activities tomorrow is likely to be less than half that with just 3000 confirmed registrations.
Ironically terrorism has succeeded what so many Australian soldiers died for a century ago, that of freedom from tyranny, fear and oppression.
Hotels, tour groups and other local services have reported a significant downturn in numbers and an even higher rate of cancellations.
Coaches are half full, hotels half empty and some tour groups have cancelled packages altogether.
Terrorist attacks in nearby Brussels last month and in Paris late last year have sadly scared many away from the region. But that has not stopped enthusiastic locals who will forever revere Australia’s efforts in the region with genuine respect and affection and emblazon their town with all things iconically Australian from blow up kangaroos to Aussie flags.
Maitland Grossman teacher and trip co-ordinator Kerry Blatchley said her pupils and parents were never going to cancel but for the first time the school was prompted to issue indemnity waiver forms should the unimaginable happen.
She said the trip was planned two years in advance and terror attacks and high alert for further ones could not be predicted.
“We liaised closely with the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Education, there were concerns not so much with the parents but from our department and principal and we addressed that with letters to parents about the terror situation.
“There were new protocols we had to address, we have never had to have that (waiver) form before … that will now be standard unfortunately.”
Despite this the trip was not going to be cancelled.
“It’s trip we never miss because it marries up with the modern history curriculum so its definitely something we incorporate.
“We try and lift it out of the textbook and give them a real life perspective of where the battlefields were. It’s one of those things you can’t picture until you are standing here and see the area they had to cover, the landscape they had to cope with and the notion of having the villages buried down and the impact the Australians had. You don’t realise the impact the Australians had until you come here, one of those things you go to the Dawn Services because that is what we do but it’s not till you come here and put it into context it’s a lot more poignant particularly in younger eyes.”
Including those young eyes that shed tears.
Originally published as Maitland girl visits grave of her great, great grandmother’s partner in France ahead of Anzac Day
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