Birdsong

They say that every family in Britain had some sort of connection with the First World War. However, up until some six years ago, I always thought we were an exception. My paternal grandfather did join up but by the time his training was complete the war was over. Beyond that I didn't think we had any family involvement. And then I discovered that my maternal great grandfather was one of seventeen children, a discovery which also brought with it two known WWI family connections.

Unbeknown to him, my maternal grandfather had a great uncle who died during the conflict and a cousin who finished the war with a gunshot wound to his head. Having visited northern France on numerous occasions, I decided it was time to pay another visit.

Day one, visiting the family sites, was a series of heavy showers and grey skies interspersed with bright sunshine and a chill wind - the weather in its own way reflecting the extremes that many soldiers must have endured in France 100 years ago. First stop was a hamlet called Mont Des Cats which is a actually a Catholic abbey atop a small hill. During the war the Abbey was used by the allies as a casualty clearing station for triaging the wounded. It was here that the cousin was treated and assessed before making his way via two hospitals and Boulogne back to Canterbury and recuperation.

The great uncle's story was probably typical of many men of the time. He joined the army in the 1880s and served in India and the second Boer war, both locations where illness and action saw many casualties. Having endured those, he then went throughout the whole of the First World War only to succumb like many others

to the great flu epidemic three months after the war. He's buried in a Commonwealth War Graves plot in the public cemetery in Lille.

Day two may have been brilliant sunshine but it was still very chilly. Having travelled south to the Somme region and stayed overnight in Albert, the next stop was a visit to the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, at Thiepval. Over 70,000 names are etched on the memorial, which may not be breathtaking in its beauty but which is a sobering reminder of the carnage that must have taken place over the summer of 1916. Crossing the River Ancre, next stop was the Newfoundland memorial park which is maintained by the Canadian government. Walking across no-man's land in the bright sun, with only the chirping of birds to break the silence, it's hard to imagine what life would have been like back then, though  Sebastian Faulks's book, Birdsong, which is set in this area, vividly portrays a sense of what it must have been like. More of my photos of the Somme are available on Flickr.