OUBLIAL

Athens

A surreal photo, caught by Stavros Papantoniou.  Perikles on the statue died in 429 BC in the epidemic of ancient Athens.

Vimy

The Battle of Vimy Ridge took place in April 1917, and was part of the Battle of Arras in Northern France.  Canadian troops fought against German Troops.  It was the first time that all four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force had fought as a single cohesive unit.

The Memorial at Vimy is a National Canadian Monument and serves to commemorate those Canadians who fell during the First World War and also those Canadians without a known grave.

The main element of the monument is Mother Canada mourning her dead.  She stands on the edge of the monument, looking over the once blood drenched fields on which so many Canadians fell.

A truly moving experience the first time it is visited, more so on subsequent visits.

I was on holiday in France, 2007 when I first saw the memorial at Vimy, it made such an impression on me, that on the journey back to the ferry, at the end of the holiday, we stopped again to photograph it.  It is unbelievably moving.  Like so many of the War Cemeteries and memorials within the Somme area of Northern France their very presence is to commemorate the fallen of a long, bloody and needless war.  Some of the memorials are beautiful, in total contrast to the very thing that they were built to commemorate.

About 3 hours drive south of Vimy, stands a little village graveyard.  You could quite easily drive past St Agnan Communal Cemetery and not know that it is there.  However, I know that it is there because it contains the grave of a relative.  Walter Alec Clarence Footman was killed on the night of ¾ May, 1944 in the lead up to ’D’ Day.  He was part of a large Lancaster bomber raid on a transport and communications centre.  Unfortunately he didn’t come back - he was 24.

So here we have two ends of the commemorative spectrum, a massive monument in honour of 11,000 Canadians who lost their lives in France, and a single grave to an airman of the second world war.  

One death is to many…