Practice and a very personal pilgrimage

As it is half term this week, I have again taken the opportunity to head away from the Thames Valley for a hiking training camp – again two days walking approx. 30km are planned. After the Easter Cotswold ‘camp’ I have decided to to venture to the near continent this time. Eurostar to Lille is booked, then a train from there to Kortrijk and on to Ypres (Ieper in Flemish) where I will be based for 72 hours. To make it a close as possible to a ‘Camino’ practice walk I have even booked into a different B&B for each of the two nights I am there so I don’t have the temptation of leaving stuff (or whole bag!) in the room while I walk. Plan is to simulate a camino day, up early, out walking before 7.30 and find breakfast after an hour or so. Then get the bulk of the kms in before lunch and get back to Ypres by mid-afternoon. The only thing I am unlikely to be able to re-create is the 30°+ temperatures! After two days walking in the Ypres Salient and Flanders Fields I will return to Lille for a night there and hopefully be able to squeeze in a quick visit to the world-famous velodrome on the outskirts of the city where the Paris-Roubaix cycle race finishes each April! Then take the return train to St Pancras.

Why Ypres? Back in 2014, to mark the centenary of the start of World War I, the Royal British Legion ran the Every Man Remembered campaign to try and get every soldier that died in the Great War to be commemorated by someone.

I decided to see if anyone from the street I live on was ‘unremembered’. After searching the website I was suprised, humble and deeply saddened but immensely proud to discover Private Sydney Henry George, aged 33, was killed on September 24, 1917 at the Battle of the Menin Bridge Road. My debt of gratitude to Private George was made greater by the fact he and his wife lived in the house we are living in today. He is honoured at the Tyne Cot Memorial near Zonnebeke, 10km from the Menin Gate in Ypres. So this is my very personal pilgrimage.

What better location and reason for a practice camp for #MyLongWalk2019?  – I am embarking on my Camino this summer, and am able to do so because of the bravery of so many young men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice which ultimately allows us to do the thing we want today. So I decided to visit Private George’s memorial and spend two days walking and exploring Flanders Fields and the Ypres Salient, the front line of WWI with it’s poignant, emotional, thought-provoking cemeteries and memorials. I have visited the region before as an A-Level student over 30 years ago and have always wanted to return with a more mature viewpoint.