94 Year 9 pupils visited the First World War battlefields of Ypres on a three-day trip between Wednesday 4^th and Friday 6^th October. 

After the long drive from Holt, they began the trip with a visit to the Casualty Clearing Station cemetery at Lijssenthoek where they visited the graves of OGs Nathaniel Henry Atlee Ready of OSH and Douglas Birch Richardson of Howson’s. 

On Thursday, a packed day began with a visit to German trenches at Bayenwald before they visited Essex Farm Dressing Station, where Miriam G visited the memorial to her great great great great uncle John McCrae, author of the poem ‘In Flanders Field’.

The group went on to have a guided tour of Talbot House at Poperinge, a welcome retreat from the traumas of the frontline.

In the afternoon they visited Hooge, including a personal pilgrimage for David R who remembered his great-grandfather’s brother John near to where he fell aged just 19, having no known grave.

They visited the Hooge museum, and several students got to try on gas masks, whilst Isaac B was dressed as a fully kitted British Tommy.

They explored Hill 60 and remembered OG and Farfield boy Charlie Kirch, close to the spot where he was fatally injured. After supper they attended the evening act of remembrance at the Menin Gate Memorial, where Jemima and Henry laid a wreath on behalf of Gresham’s. The trip concluded with three visits on Friday morning. They remembered German losses at the cemetery at Langemarck, visited the newly restored Gresham’s Memorial at St George’s Memorial Chapel in Ypres, where Irene T and Tristan B laid a wreath of remembrance, and finished with a visit to the cemetery at Tyne Cot where we remembered OG and Howson’s boy Clement Neill Newsum.