NO.122
T H E T R U S T Y S E RVA N T
…as does James Webster
Mike Wallis demonstrates…
that French and English authorities were
preparing in May 2016 for an expected
invasion of visitors during the centenary
of the battle – and we had the benefit of
most of those preparations without the
crowds, thanks to our organisers’
forethought.
We met at St Pancras station to take
the Eurostar to Lille (memories of the first
day of term – ‘Oh look, there’s old So and
So…what is his name?’). Then a coach to
Arras and our hotel (the l’Univers) in the
centre of a peaceful market town, with
several large cobbled squares, plenty of
restaurants (we had to find our own
dinners on two nights). The hotel had a
cobbled courtyard too, on which every
wheeled suitcase played its own wakeful
tune. But Arras is the centre of the gently
rolling countryside, criss-crossed with
small rivers, making up the Somme valley.
It was just like being back in Hampshire.
Who were we? The organising team
were Michael Wallis and James Webster,
whose background research and
preparation ensured we had good advance
instructions, homework reading list, and
ample information about the area, the
battle, how it fitted into the overall war
and what we were going to see. In
particular, they had researched and
included in our tour brochure details eight
of the eighty-eight OWs who lost their
lives on the Somme, so that we could
follow the School connections during our
tour. The eight included sons of famous
families, such as Raymond Asquith and
Edward (‘Bim’) Tennant. Evening
briefings about the following day’s plans
and a cheerful willingness to answer
questions about any aspect of the battle
completed their perfe