This is a text-only version of an article first published on Tuesday, 21 May 2019. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
Terry lays a cross on the grave of his grandfather.
Chris Bull.
FOR Terry Blacknell from Christ Church, Flackwell Heath, in Buckinghamshire a recent trip to the battlefields of Belgium was the chance to achieve a very personal mission. For the first time he visited the grave of his grandfather, who was killed just nine days before Armistice Day.
"I have wanted to go for some time.
My two sons have got interested and we are going back, with the grandchildren, as a family.
It's quite an emotional experience.
My grandfather had died when Armistice had been declared and my grandmother didn't get to know about his death until November.
She thought he was going to come home, which makes it all the more poignant. "Terry's grandfather was 30 when he died and the man in the next grave was just 20.
"He was also in the machine gun corps.
We think my grandfather would have been in charge of a machine gun, and the younger man would have been the one loading it with ammunition," he added.
Terry was part of a group of 16 men from Christ Church who visited the Flanders Field Museum in Ypres as well as cemeteries where they took in the horror of World War One, particularly the Battle of of Passchendaele, the centenary of which is remembered this July.
They also visited the memorials of eight men from Flackwell Heath who are buried in Belgium.
Only three have known graves; the others are remembered on panels on the Menin Gate in Ypres and at Tyne Cot Cemetery. The Revd Chris Bull, the Vicar, said: "It was a privilege to be able to stand where they are remembered and read out their stories and place a small cross on behalf of the village.
Each night since 1928 the Last Post has been played at the Menin Gate in Ypres and we were able, on behalf of the Flackwell Heath Royal British Legion, the village and the parish church to lay two wreaths in memory of our fallen. " Chris said they also visited Talbot House, a building behind the front lines where soldiers could rest and recuperate. Chris added: "Thousands of soldiers attended the simple chapel on the top floor, many receiving their first and last Holy Communion there.
In the lounge downstairs we stood around a piano and sang as one of our pianists played WW1 songs, eerily echoing a photo on the wall taken 100 years ago, remembering the men who had passed through this place. "What does one glean from such a visit: a glimpse at the futility, waste and awfulness of war, a greater desire to work for and pray for peace and reconciliation, a remembering and honouring of the stories of courage and bravery. "