His group was from the Calgary Highlanders Army Cadet Corps who had been following the progress of the 10th Battalion, 1st Canadian Division, which was the former unit of the regiment across northern France and Belgium in both world wars. The next day we set off to visit sites with significant Canadian interest. The details supplied by Mark included diagrams of the area showing positions of the protagonists, graphic descriptions of the action, summaries of individual acts of bravery and copies of photographs taken at the time. The whole day’s experience was riveting.
We finished our days tour by five o’clock, returning to the hotel so that the group could change into full uniform for that evening’s ceremony at the Menin Gate. This includes laying of wreaths and the playing of the Last Post by buglers of the local fire brigade and is carried out every evening at 8.00pm and has been since 1928. This was on the first anniversary of the unveiling of the Menin Gate, probably the most well known of all First World War memorials on the Western Front, as it lists the names of over 54,000 British and Commonwealth troops who died in the Ypres Salient and have no known grave.
You can read about the story on our War Memorial Tours blog
