War Hero

My great uncle was killed at Dunkirk in World War 2. Coincidentally on a recent trip home, we were sorting our storage unit when we came across my Gran's handbag. In the handbag was my Gran's passport, the only travel stamp in it was the arrival into France, when three generations of our family visited my great uncles grave in Northern France. The coincidence was complete when we noticed the date stamped, it was 70 years to the day that we had found the passport.

We had already made plans to go visit his grave, and this made us more determined to take the trip. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has is an excellent source of information to use as a starting point for making such a visit.

We flew to Paris, arriving early, caught a train north to Lille which was to be our base for 5 nights. We loved the friendly cafe culture of Lille, stopping frequently just for a coffee and a cake, something we miss living in Hong Kong. After a couple of days local sightseeing, we arranged to collect a hire car for a few days, and tour the area. The fist visit had to be to Merville to visit the War Cemetery. It wasn't long before we left the Lille suburbs and was driving in open country. As the scenery changed we noticed how many immaculately kept cemeteries there are, paying respects to several allied nationalities.

By lunchtime we arrived in Merville, parked and made our way to the cemetery, we knew exactly where his grave was situated, and it didn't take us long to find him, buried between 2 unknown soldiers from the North of England. The sheers scale and scope of the cemetery was something we wont forget, immaculately kept, grave stones lined with military precision. We read the inscriptions, men so young, making the ultimate sacrifice. I had found some rose petals in my grans purse, unfortunately i'll never know their story of how they came to be kept there, and both Jane and I felt it fitting that we placed them on his grave stone. Leaving the quiet of the cemetery we were emotional and very proud of his sacrifice, and I was so pleased to be able to have kept my promise to the family to visit, and pay due respect.

We spent the following days, visiting museums and memorials in the area, and we particularly impressed with the Australian cemetery highlighting the work of DNA tracing, aiming to identify the unknown fallen in the area. One day we took a drive to Bruges, and remembered the time we visited with friends several years ago to celebrate New Years Eve.

For our final day we took the train back down to spend the day in Paris. The very first holiday Jane and I spent together was in Paris, and it was good to have a gentle day wandering the city and being a proper tourist. We took the hop on/hop off boat, just going where it took our fancy, and managed to see all we wanted to see before catch the train to CDG and our hotel for the night. We chose the Holiday Inn Express as our flight due to depart early on the Saturday morning, and we didn't want to leave things to chance, getting back to the airport from the city so early in the morning.