after the spring and autumn ploughings, awaiting collection by the authorities.
Walking through woods, such as Delville, Mametz and Ploegsteert (Plugstreet), fought over with such terrible losses, is an eerie experience.  These woods have been left almost as they were. Even today they are still a mass of shell craters and old trenches, with many of the fallen still lying beneath the visitor's feet. There is an almost tangible silence in the depths of these and other woods which is difficult to describe.  At Delville Wood, like many other woods, there was no 'front line'. Battles ebbed one way then the other as each side attacked and counter attacked.  Shell upon shell fell relentlessly on the same spot, churning up

the soil and those who occupied it in a relentless hell of artillery fire. 
Wherever you stand on the battlefields today, whether it be the gentle slopes leading to a little town called Passchendaele, or the rolling fields of the Somme, one can try to turn the clock back to how the land must have looked back in 1914-1918.  To make this transformation possible you should preferably have copies of the original trench maps and plans, as these are your 'window' to an almost unimaginable world.  Only in this way can what otherwise appears to be just rural Belgium and France be seen in your mind's eye for what it must have been like. One can never truly understand, for only those who were there truly know, but we can try .  This quest is the underlying theme of the self-drive and conducted tours provided by us.

Perhaps the most lasting impression is that of the countless cemeteries on the Somme and Ypres battlefields today, and throughout the Western Front, each with its own story to tell. Each uniform grave an individual,  a son, a father, a treasured life, a name on a telegram, a loved one never to return.  An individual to be talked of in years to come as being the distant uncle or grandfather, 'killed in the Great War' - the war to end all wars.…  This sentiment is always present in our minds as one walks amongst the seemingly endless rows of headstones.

Almost half the headstones bear Kipling's words  - 'A soldier of the Great War - Known unto God';   a body that could not be identified.  Even sadder is the realisation that tens of thousands of the 500,000+ British and Commonwealth 'missing' have been denied the dignity of even an 'unidentified' burial. 

These soldiers of 'the war to end all wars',  including my great uncle Edmund Parke, today lie at rest under the thin veneer of normality that is the countryside of Flanders and Picardy today, their bodies having never been found. 

Their memory is kept alive by those who seek to take a few minutes of their lives to try to understand what happened in this 'Great War', the shadow of which can not escape touching us, even all these years on.

James Power
2002

carnage - and these are the places I find particularly moving, and which I include in all itineraries.  This is why the Somme and Ypres continue to be amongst the most interesting and thought provoking battlefields of the First World War.

In the Somme tour itinerary (for both Self-Drive and conducted tours) I have tried to give a flavour of just some of the many places to visit on the battlefield today.  The list is virtually endless and most visitors to this battlefield return many times, as has been the case with myself and many others.  Travelling in such small groups (conducted tours) allows us to be flexible and go to places where larger tour operators either don't have time to visit, or cannot get to due to the size of their vehicles.

Visiting the battlefields can also be quite a moving experience, an experience best handled as part of a small group of friends (as we soon become…) where there is opportunity to reflect in silence, as opposed to being part of a larger more impersonal gathering.

As one walks over the ploughed fields which were once No Man's Land, whether on the Somme or Ypres battlefields, it is easy to come upon pieces of shrapnel, barbed wire, cartridge cases and other battle debris.   Unexploded shells are still unearthed on a regular basis even to this day in what is known locally as the 'Harvest of Iron'.  It is a common sight to see  unexploded shells lying by the roadside