MarlingHistory

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

@PhoenixDownsFC1 UP THE PHOENIX 🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

@PhoenixDownsFC1 Glad you only mentioned my first shot 😉

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

Limited tickets still available for anyone still interested! Please come and get involved, Mr Brown would love the support

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

Battlefields trip update: we should be on schedule to be at Cirencester by half 6 and Marling at 7 tonight. They’ve bought lots of chocolate so make sure they give you some...if they’ve not already scoffed the lot 😂🤔

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

Today we leave Belgium & make our way to the ferry via Wormhout, site of a massacre of British prisoners by SS troops in 1940. Held in a barn, volunteers were called for to be shot. When no more came forward, grenades were thrown in. Trees commemorate them. Some somehow survived.

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

Essex Farm Cemetery. Known as the location where Captain John McCrae wrote the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ after seeing his friend killed. It’s also the location of the 1st gas attack of the war. Among the graves are the youngest British soldier to fall & a VC recipient

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

One of our lads managed to find a relative here. Saw quite a mixture of emotions on his face as he talked to me, lots to try to feel and fathom all at once. Corporal G Cole, mentioned in Dispatches, awarded the Military Medal. Hopefully the story is still available.

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

Tyne Cot this morning, resting place for those lost in the 3rd Battle of Ypres: Passchendaele. The scale of the place is overwhelming & no picture can do it justice, especially as there’s thousands more names on walls. The only way to fathom it is with individuals & inscriptions.

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

Also today! We stopped at Memetz Wood memorial to the Welsh, handy considering the boys are studying a poem about this very place for English (Nice work Mrs Wittke!) We also stopped at Catepillar Valley Cemetery to visit a relative, &the moving wall of all nations soldiers’ names

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

Thiepval, where are few boys were able to track the names of the ancestors

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

Battlefields trip 2018 is well underway! We’re currently at Ulster Tower on the Somme, having been to Beaumont Hamel earlier this morning. Next stop, Thiepval.

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

#civilisationsbristol fantastic documentary. Should there be more education about the links between celebrating capitalism and slavery?

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

Just leaving Swindon now, hopefully at Cirencester in the next 15-20 minutes. We are coming, I promise!

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

@BarbaraSParry1 Bus station in town 😊

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

Provisional rough timings:
Swindon bus station at 11.50

Beeches car park in Cirencester at 12.10

Marling at 12.30

See you soon (hopefully)

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

We’ve landed! We’re still very much on the plane though. Will update about arrival times when I have a clearer indication.

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

We’re finally aboard the plane! Should be arriving in London at 10pm, so with a bit of luck we’ll be at Marling by midnight or so 🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽🛫

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

The good news: we’ve had a great trip and we’re all at the airport safe and sound.
The bad news: our flight has been delayed by an hour. Will keep posting updates.

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

On a lighter note, here’s Jude, on a tram, eating an apple with a spoon. No one seems to know why. He insists “it makes it feel like dessert.”

[MarlingHistory @danelson650]

Penultimate activity of our trip is the Stasi prison, following a slight tram detour. Ben is stood in an actual punishment cell. Some prisoners were kept in there for up to a week. The Stasi then switched to psychological torture instead, to gain credibility worldwide. Nice.