Hi GSB ... it's the Lakenhallen in Ypres. the one that holds the museum. The cathedral is in your back... My god, that reads like the Ultimate Misery Tour... grtz
Cheers Kope - corrected... ahem! - Actually it wasn't miserable at all - apart from the Rain on the way to WSBK in Brno in Czech.....! Colditz was brilliant - it was just a really interesting trip! What is incredible about places like Ypres - is when you look at the photos of it during 1914-18 and it is litterally a moon scape with piles of smouldering bricks, and you see it now, half the time if you didnt know it had been raised to ground within the last 100 years, you never would know.
Grandfather (brother of the great uncle that was killed at Ypres......[above pic]) was as far as I can establish in Egypt in WW1.............at least he ended up in hospital in Alexandria............Difficult to get his service history because records were destroyed in London fires WW2. He joined up in the Royal Sussex Regmt at the start of the war while his brother joined the Rifle Brigade. Grandfather was gassed at some stage, followed by a shrapnel wound, hence hospital. The odd thing about it is that when the war finished he had ended up in the Essex Regmt.........I know that because I have photos of him with both regiments' badges on his cap (not at the same time like Monty). He was 17 when he joined up and died from bronchitis and emphysema (probably turned to cancer) aged 71 having been gassed; smoked Senior Service (untipped) and was eventually a guard on the Norwich to London steam trains............after the war he played the euphonium is some hospital brass band........where he got the puff from, God knows. AL
Here's a photo of both my grandfathers in uniform. Apparently the one on the left was taken somewhere in France in 1915 and the one on the right was Egypt in 1938. They're the only ones I have of them in uniform but my parents probably have a couple more.
A friend of mine has published part of his fathers memoirs on the web. It makes for interesting and moving reading. You can find it here http://davidmitchell.co.uk/David_Mitchell/D-Day.html Its sort of Ducati related too as my mate ran the Xerox Ducati WSB sponsorship programme.
My Grandfather on my mothers side won the Military Cross at Gallipoli, he went over the top to save his officer who has injured and dragged him back under fire. He,s the one whos ringed in the photo. I never knew him but he,s remembered by us all. RSM John Wright
