British relatives gather in Ypres on Armistice Day to mark passing of their fallen families
 Every evening at sunset, the Last Post has sounded under the Menin Gate, in Ypres, the epicentre of conflict in the First World War, today, on Armistice Day, legions of British families flocked to Ypres to pay their respects to the fallen. Benoit Mottrie,chariman of the Last Post Association and the grandson of its founder Aime Gruwez’ said, "This is the busiest time I have ever witnessed. "In the 1950s, 60s, 70s it was often just the two police stopping the traffic the buglers, and maybe a handful of people, sometimes no one when we played the Last Post. I don't think we will ever be alone again." Gathered around the imposing 14.5 metre high memorial that bears the names of 54,395 British and Commonwealth soldiers of the 90,000 who died on Ypres Salient but were never found, the crowds bowed their head at one at 11am local time on the 11 November. They fell silent, like the guns on November 11. At least 300,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed over the four years of war, five major battles around Ypres, including Passchendaele which cost half a million casualties for the gain of just a few miles. Lest we forget: First World War centenary commemorations, in pictures Ypres, which was of major strategic importance, was constantly shelled by the surrounding German troops and the city reduced to rubble. Scott Watson, 33, is a fireman with six years service in the Royal Navy. His great great grandfather was killed in 1915 in France. His great grandad served in the Desert Rats and his Dad was in the navy for 32 years. He was among the packed crowds by the gate with his partner Catherine Shea, 34 and daughter Grace, 13. “This means everything to me and to my family. It is our responsibility to make sure future generations remember them and Grace must make sure her children remember as well. We will never forget,” he said. Gareth Richards is a former warrant officer with the Royal Engineers, who served in Kosovo, Bosnia and Northern Ireland. Francesca Shaw, from Leeds, England, prepares to lay a poppy wreath during an Armistice ceremony at the Menin Gate Credit: AP Photo/Virginia Mayo He travelled to Ypres with 25 veterans of the regiment from Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Royal Engineers fought on the salient, digging under German positions and planting explosives. Gareth, who lives in Paisley, was here to pay tribute to his great grandfather, a private in the Welsh Fusiliers. Robert Evans was taken prisoner in the First Battle of Ypres in August 1914. He later served in the Home Guard in World War Two. Wearing his great grandfather’s medals from the Boer war and First World War alongside his own, Gareth said, “This is so important to mark history. There are going to be a lot of tears today.” The men marched out towards the front from Ypres, some along the route on which Reginald Blomfield’s triumphal arch has stood since 1927. Max Dutton, 26, is assistant historian at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Max, who is from Harrogate, said, “and I am honoured to do this job”. An HQ dugout near Ypres during the First World War, found in a scrapbook belonging to Captain Robert Harley Egerton Bennett Credit: A.C.H.Bennett / PA His maternal great grandfather, Private William Alvin of the East York Regiment, served and survived on the Sommes and Ypres. “He was gassed,” said Max, “my granny always used to say he coughed all his life.” Volunteers from every corner of Britain took part in the “poppy parade” on Sunday, holding baskets of poppies. They were tossed them from the top of the gate so they floated down from the top of the arch. Firefighters in full dress uniform, and other onlookers, bent down and gently stowed them away in pockets and wallets as souvenirs. Eleanor Foulkes, 28, an actor, grew up in Montreal, Canada. “The importance of remembering cannot be overstated, especially for my generation as the war gets further and further away and back into history,” she said. Nearby at St George’s Memorial Church the muffled bells rang out. For almost 90 years, there were no bells ringing from the “English Church” but today they rang four times. The church was built in 1927 to give a place of worship to those who came to build the memorials to the fallen. Reginald Bromfield, the architect of the Menin Gate where thousands gathered to pay their respects just 10 minutes’ walk away , was the brains and heart behind it. The Ypres and Surrey Pipes Marching Band march during an Armistice ceremony at the Menin Gate Credit: AP Photo/Virginia Mayo The Menin Gate and the English Church were among a handful of new additions in Ypres, which was over the course of the war reduced to rubble and had to be painstakingly rebuilt. But St George’s was never truly finished because until last year. Its brick tower, draped on Sunday with a cloak of 1,600 croctched poppies sent from around the world, had never hosted church bells. Funding ran out before they could ever be made. That changed last year, thanks to readers of the Daily Telegraph who contributed to an appeal to finally “finish the church”. Recognised in Belgian law as a Church of England parish on a foreign land, St George’s now has its “remembrance bells”, eight English change-ringing bells that fit the steeple perfectly. They are engraved with the names of fallen bell-ringers on the Western Front, and by the names of schools whose boys went over the top to their doom. The heaviest, the tenor, weighs 672 pounds and each of the eight needs a ringer to sound them. Queen Mathilde and King Philippe of Belgium during the Last Post ceremony at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Ypres Credit: NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP “We all them our remembrance bells because they have the names of fallen soldiers engraved upon them. When you are ringing, you remember. But we must never forget, we never seem to learn, We are at war now, aren’t we? No one must ever forget,” said Liz Millward, the tower captain of the bell ringers and the church warden. Liz was inspired to take up bell-ringing again, after a 15-year gap. Her father, a former RAF serviceman, had been ringing since he was 13. She moved to Ypres 14 years ago and is now the proud grandmother to a Belgian-British girl. Her great grandfather was killed in France, aged 42 and leaving four children and a pregnant wife. Alan Regin is the steward of the rolls of honour for the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, and has been researching the lives of the fallen bell-ringers from the Great War for nearly 30 years. The 59-year-old said, “1,500 bell-ringers fell in World War One. At Tyne Cot cemetery there are 35 names on the memorial to the missing and there are more than 50 on the Menin Gate in Ypres. It was them who brought me to Ypres and to St George’s Church. I saw the tower and I thought, “let’s get some bells in there.’
POSTED NOVEMBER 11, 2018 6:24 AM
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