Visit to RGLI memorial was truly humbling
LAST week with my wife, we visited Masnieres, the small town in France near Cambrai in the rural north-east where an inscribed granite memorial is proudly in place to remember the hundreds of brave Guernsey young men who died there in 1917. We were motivated to go there as our son and his friend led the fundraising activity, brilliantly supported by so many islanders and the Guernsey Press, which led to this permanent memorial to ‘Guernsey’s finest hour’.
However, my letter is not about individuals or fundraising, but rather the extraordinary experience of being in Masnieres just over 100 years after the sad but amazing events of a single day in November 1917.
To walk down the otherwise unremarkable street named Rue Verte in this working town, knowing that hundreds of courageous Guernsey soldiers were killed in just one day defending this road, was quite the most humbling experience of our lives. It is a fact that even ‘humble’ doesn’t truly convey our feelings.
On both the days we were there, normal town life was going on quietly around us as school children ambled along the pavement and the odd vehicle passed by going about people’s daily activities, so we could have been in any one of millions of French streets, but we knew it was a special place of remembrance to our island because of the memorial. All we could think of however was how those young Guernsey men must have felt so far from home and in a truly horrendous situation. At a time devoid of today’s instant communication, how must their families back in Guernsey have felt with a lack of news of their loved ones and how they must have been grief-stricken when news of the battle was finally relayed to them. So for us walking quietly down Rue Verte as proud Guernsey people really was truly humbling and we stopped several times for proper reflection.
Many thousands perished in and around Cambrai during the fierce fighting, indeed there are bigger memorials to others even in a small town like Masnieres, but Guernsey is now truly represented, and more importantly the Guernsey men are properly remembered through the granite stone in Rue Verte. The courageous men and millions like them gave themselves over 100 years ago, as did many in the Second World War, so that we could enjoy our lives today and, having been to Masnieres, we finally fully appreciate that at last.
A visit to the town – it’s in beautiful countryside despite being the site of such fierce battles – is highly recommended to combat what we now suddenly view as the minor stresses of today’s world.
MICHAEL VAUDIN
GY3 5DJ.
mike.vaudin@gmail.com