We spent Whitsun week touring the Somme, a long-held wish of my partner and the Mother-in-Law; absorbing the history of the First World War, and seeking out the resting place of her Great Uncle Austin, late of the Somerset Light Infantry, who was killed in the first Battle of the Scarp (Battle of Arras) on 11 April 1917.
I must confess to never having been much of a historian, but was fascinated by the gardens of remembrance, memorials and monuments, museums and artefacts, and learned an enormous amount about the Great War, especially from a most excellent museum visited on our last day, the Historial de la Grande Guerre at Péronne. In one of those serendipitous coincidences that occur all too rarely, I had happened to sample a new tipple in the hotel bar the night before; the dagger felt at discovering the absence of the much anticipated brew Pelforth was healed immediately upon my accepting the waiting...
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