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| Proud participant |
I have
just enjoyed an interesting, some might say, a unique and singular,
evening at Langemark near Ypres when I attended a most moving
ceremony at the Sportsman Bar where, every first Monday in
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| The Hero in the original Welsh |
the month,
there is a ceremony to honour the dead of the Welsh who fought close
by in WW1. I had, in fact, discovered the special place which a
Welshman, known by his Bardic name of Hedd Wyn, but christened Ellis
Humphrey Evans, still holds in the affection of people who live there
but especially of Marc Decaestecker, the bar owner and local caterer.
Indeed his place is virtually a shrine to Hedd Wyn [Blessed Peace] who
was killed on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele on July
31st 1917 six weeks before he was awarded the first prize in the
Birkenhead Eisteddfod for his poem,
The Hero. There were countless tributes and a small shrine to Hedd Wyn in the bar and beyond in a large exhibition of WW1 material, evidence of Marc's profound interest in, and respect for, the poet and soldier who was, essentially, a Christian pacifist.
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| After the Battle of Passchendaele |
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| The Welsh Memorial at Langemark |
However,
though reverence for Hedd Wyn is the basis for the evening, the
ceremony of remembrance is for all the men of the 38th Welsh Division who fought and died on
the nearby Pilcken Ridge. It is virtually a military-style event with
readings in both Flemish and English; solemn and plaintive trumpet and bagpipe tributes; the monument, a focal point watched over by a tall flagpole
with a Welsh flag breezily aloft. There are men in kilts and uniform,
measured steps and sadness. It is an extraordinary ceremony one
hundred and one years after the dreadful events of Passchendaele, the
Third Battle of Ypres, when an estimated one million shells landed on
Ypres in the three month-long conflict and the former timeless agricultural slopes were soon transformed into a hellish, extended mud lake
deep enough to drown men and horses, There is small wonder that the
Flemish have such strong feelings and reverence for the theatre of
WW1 which transformed and degraded and robbed the lives of every family. As one
man, involved in the arrangements and presentation, said to me, '
There isn’t a local family for many miles who hasn’t
stories to tell.’ Faded voices;
still lives; echoes of sorrows. All of these are remembered in this simple, moving ceremony.
There are parallels between Flanders and Wales; each a small part
of a larger country, each determined to retain its customs, culture and language in an increasingly homogenised world; each searching for
peace and prosperity. This inspiring monthly act of remembrance acts as
a tiny enduring beacon of that deep joint impulse.
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The back of Hedd Wyn's Bardic chair,
draped for a year after his death
in a black cloth.
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