How do you honour the sacrifice of a great grandfather you never knew existed never realised that he gave his life for you and others to be free You heal from a wound so deep that you were unaware of its existence his grandson had only heard whispers of him In 2015 my dad was given his grandfather’s medal for fighting in World War I The medal was securely stored under a bed by a relative of his grandfather over a century ago and was forgotten When the most recent inhabitants of the house decided to do away with the bedframe the medal was found securely stored in a metal box hidden in the floor my very gregarious great-grandfather just upped and disappeared He was a recruiter for the British army and one day when most of the men he recruited were found to be “unsuitable” for war he was snatched by British army recruiters and forced to set sail The anguish of abandonment for my seven year old grandfather sorrow lingered in some unreachable place and left a wound of agony that unbeknownst to my siblings and I When my father brought home a medal almost a decade ago with my great grandfather’s name Theophilus Downer engraved on it and the inscription “He died for freedom and honour,” my seven siblings and I were stunned My dad took the opportunity during our annual Christmas family dinner that year when he was made aware of his grandfather’s bravery to ceremoniously display the medal and share what he knew about his Grandpa Theophilus with the entire family Immediately upon learning this information I went to task to find out what happened to my great-grandfather Multiple unanswered calls to the British Embassy in Washington numerous communication to various British war entities and other cultural organisations finally resulted in a response in February 2020 from the Black Cultural Archives (BCA) in the United Kingdom They recommended that I contact the UK’s National Archives I communicated with the IWM and continued searching online where I found a treasure trove of information about the British West Indian Regimen I found the following,: “Service British army; private 9904 British West Indies Regiment 7th battalion; May 1917 - 19th September 1917; Death-No.22 General Hospital France September 1917; Burial-Etaples Military Cemetery CWGC Cemetery/Memorial Pas de Calais France XXVI it was imperative for my family to make a pilgrimage to visit our beloved grandfather but did not deter my family’s planned visit to our war hero Etaples Military Cemetery is the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in France and contains the remains of 10,771 soldiers including those from the Caribbean who represented the United Kingdom The Imperial War Museum shares that while our young men from the West Indies were keen to prove their worth on the battlefield their enthusiasm was not shared by Britain’s War Office which did not want the West Indian troupe of black men in its army On the personal intervention of King George V the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR) was established by Royal Warrant on November 3,1915 The regiment consisted of a total of 15,600 men from 11 battalions and served in Europe About two -thirds of the men came from Jamaica Of importance is that all the men who served in the BWIR served as volunteers because enlistment was never introduced in the West Indies military regulations prevented West Indian soldiers from holding rank higher than warrant officer the West Indies contributed men through the West India Regiment (WIR) The men who comprised the BWIR did not fight as equals alongside white soldiers They were engaged in very arduous work that was carried out almost continuously under shell fire Their support roles included digging trenches This work was often carried out within range of German artillery and snipers including my great-grandfather’s is priceless 185 men from the BWIR had been killed in action and 1,071 had died of sickness the men’s bravery was well established and as reported commanding officer of the BWIR in speaking of the bravery of the 2nd Battalion wrote that “Outside my own division that are no troops I would sooner have with me than the BWIs who have won the highest opinions of all who have been with them during our operations here.” Several BWIR soldiers were awarded gallantry medals Among those who were awarded was the then future Jamaican Prime Minister Our trip to visit my great grandfather’s burial site began on July 5 With hearts full of praise for answered prayers our travel angel Michel Berthelin who was on his way to Le Touquet My sister Gaynor and her daughter Jhanell Hart visited our great grandfather’s headstone on July 7 this year Jhanell was able to have our dad join us as he sat on the verandah in Jamaica To behold the number of headstones so neatly laid out in rows upon rows and to realise that each represented a person was altogether overwhelming My feet were frozen to the spot when I realised that my great-grandfather was also here Buoyed on by the youth and exuberance of my niece Jhanell my feet took flight and soon we were running towards the headstones We were all so excited to finally be here going off-kilter in the general directions of the cemetery daddy suggested that we stop and began our search with deliberation “Here he is.” We had found the headstone of our beloved great-grandfather Theophilus Gaynor and I walked sombrely to the site and on reaching it a feeling of despondency enveloped me as tears spiked my eyes because a piece of me that I never recognised before Having our dad present for this most hallowed experience was more than a blessing Sadness laced his words as he wondered aloud about how his dad Gideon would have felt to know that his dear father did not abandon him and as equally important I want to tell my great-grandfather that his sacrifice was not in vain I want to tell him that he is a great tree Let him know that this next generation of Downers are well We visited him again before leaving and were able to make peace with what has happened and admit that amidst the joy why is there no acknowledgement of the sacrifices people like my great-grandfather endured and ultimately died for How many of us do not know about the atrocities our ancestors endured and are therefore not able to mourn or honour them We do not need permission to honour our heroes The world honours their fallen heroes with parades and other befitting forms of recognition The blood of our Caribbean War Heroes soaks the foreign soil on which some of these celebrations occur Our war heroes cry out not to be forgotten As one grieving woman shared with me at Etaples Military Cemetery during my visit “These medals are nothing but death pennies These people died for what?” Her grandfather is buried there too I am appealing fellow Jamaicans and indeed the entire Caribbean region to set aside a day to acknowledge the sacrifice and honour these soldiers Those who died on foreign soil and those who returned to us forever changed Let us call their names and never again forget the sacrifices they have made and likewise that of their families I reflect in silent gratitude for all that has happened; the sadness and mostly the unexpected divine surprises that continually grace our lives Great-grandfather Robert Theophilus Downer died five months after going to war and celebrated as he continues to rest in eternal peace Dr. Goulda Downer is a great-granddaughter of Private Robert Theophilus Downer. She is associate professor in College of Medicine at Howard University, in Washington D.C. Send feedback to gdowner@howard.edu View the discussion thread. Donate Today Exciting changes are afoot in the Memorial galleries The Art Section has been working closely with Exhibitions to update our displays with the installation of nearly fifty paintings The changeovers aim to enrich visitor experiences and offer new insights into Australia’s military history through unique works of art by Will Dyson she was strategically located in Étaples near the French Belgian border when the First World War broke out Rae had lived there with her sister and mother since 1890 when the sleepy port town was a flourishing artists’ camp When the British army established a major military base at Étaples in 1914 many artists evacuated The Étaples base was a notoriously brutal military complex comprising of a training centre known as ‘the bull ring’ New Zealand and Scottish troops were stationed at Étaples throughout the war the Rae women joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) Rae drew the soldiers as they prepared to go to the Western front and upon their return to the camp the unusual juxtaposition of military subjects drawn in the delicate medium of chalky pastel creates a powerful sense of disquiet Rae makes the most of her reduced palette of blue white and yellow to create haunting images of life inside the camp which was both a dangerous and monotonous existence In one of her earliest works depicting the camp Rae judiciously applies the radiant yellow and white chalks to light the entire composition The only light and warmth in the scene is the striking illumination from the central tent and the glow of its neighbour in which two prisoners are depicted as shadows We have replaced a Sidney Nolan of Gallipoli depicting Simpson and his donkey with a rare watercolour by Horace Moore-Jones (1868–1922) called The landing at Anzac 25th April 1915 The earliest known depiction of the Gallipoli landing by an enlisted artist this watercolour sketch of Anzac forces coming ashore was likely created shortly after the landing showing Gallipoli Cove before the tracks and diggings in the hills and before construction of piers leading out from the beach Moore-Jones enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in 1914 and was posted to the 1st Field Company of Engineers He served as aide de camp for ANZAC commander Lieutenant General Birdwood who remarked: “Many of Sapper Moore-Jones’s pictures were and they portray very faithfully the country in which we were operating give a good impression of the conditions of life in which our troops were working for some eight months.” One of the major changes in the Second World War galleries is the installation of a significant painting by the British artist and RAF pilot David T On the Bomber Offensive: Air Europe wall we have installed Smith’s haunting surrealist depiction of the Incident in which Flight Sergeant Rawdon Middleton [VC] lost his life (1949) which was given to Australia by the Royal Air Force in 1951 I was taken aback by this painting when I first saw it not only by its scale but also its sense of otherworldliness The dramatic death of Middleton VC was graphically depicted in numerous newspapers at the time but this painting draws on the psychological impact of Middleton’s death and sacrifice and focuses on the crew members’ lives he saved through his heroic actions on that night Middleton’s story is always worth recounting: Flight Sergeant Rawdon Hume Middleton VC led No Royal Air Force in an attack on the Fiat works at Turin His aircraft was severely damaged by anti-aircraft fire over the target and he suffered wounds to the face and lost an eye Despite the flight over the Alps having used too much fuel to make the return journey Middleton was determined to reach English soil “We will try to make our coast and you fellows can then bale out and save yourselves – I cannot get away with my wounds anyway.” Five of his men landed safely before Middleton turned back to sea to avoid crashing in a populated area The two men who remained with him lost their lives after bailing out; their parachutes can be seen floating towards the sea in the distance Smith served on the same squadron as Middleton Previously catalogued as a work by an unknown artist by the name of David Smith the research by the Art Section aided by our colleagues at the Royal Air force Museum London has revealed the correct attribution of this fascinating artist And a call out to archivist/curators across the Memorial I would love to locate the original letter from the RAF donating the painting to the Australian Government the paper trail for this gift is minimal and I would like to remedy that Incident in which Flight Sergeant Rawdon Middleton [VC] lost his life we have also installed two watercolours by Dora Meeson draw on-the-spot as the artist walked around ruined London streets in 1941 Meeson was an Australian artist who lived in Chelsea throughout the First and Second World Wars The works selected depict buildings bombed during the Blitz The evacuation of children from Southend 2nd June These works go a long way in explaining the acute motivation Flight Sergeant Rawdon Middleton VC and his crew felt in making their fateful mission to Italy in 1942 There have been a significant number of changes in our various Prisoner of War spaces including the installation of two incredible drawings by Murray Griffin and Jack Chalker in the Japan Prisoner of War gallery Griffin’s Working on a Thailand railway cutting July 1943 replaces the Jack Chalker of Weary Dunlop at the operating table The drawing portrays Australian prisoners of war forced to build the Burma–Thailand Railway Appalled by the condition in which men returned from the railway Griffin sought to document their experiences using rudimentary materials scrounged from Changi Prison and pigment was cultivated by holding an iron bar over a coconut oil lamp flame and scraping the soot from the bar Construction of a bridge over the Mae Khlong River You will also find a new Jack Chalker work on the opposite wall Chalker served in the Royal Field Artillery in the Second World War and was attached to the Second AIF as a war artist this work documents the Construction of a bridge over the Mae Khlong River During the construction of the Burma–Thailand Railway a bridge was built at the meeting point of the Mae Khlong and Khwae Noi rivers Prisoners were forced to use human-powered pile-drivers to sink the wooden supports for the bridge Captured during the fall of Singapore in 1942 Chalker made drawings of the conditions endured by prisoners of war he hid his work in sections of bamboo buried in the ground Back on the home front in Australia we have changed over a Sybil Craig portrait so that we could unite two remarkable paintings by Grace Taylor Land Army Girls on Cotton painted in Biloela Queensland in 1945 joins the beloved Smoko time with the AWLA British-born Grace Taylor immigrated to New Zealand in 1902 and trained as a professional artist at the Elam School of Art in Auckland She moved to Sydney in 1926 and later settled in Brisbane she was appointed a field officer in the Australian Women’s Land Army and made a small group of paintings depicting the back-breaking agricultural work undertaken by women in support of the war effort For our Ivor Hele fans at the Memorial we have changed over four stunning sanguine drawings by the master The works on paper collection by Ivor Hele is extraordinary so it was very hard to decide which works to include which tells the moving story of the many orphaned children during the war in Korea; a double portrait of Lance Corporal Robert Holman Gow of Victoria and on the right is Lance Corporal Roy Anderson of Queensland We have also included a fantastic drawing called 88 radio set which is really a characteristic portrait of Platoon Signaller Private Peter Beyer In addition to enhancing our understanding of military history, these changeovers assist in conserving our Art for future generations. For those not able to visit the Memorial in person, explore over 8,000 digitised artworks available to view on our website on display in the First World War Galleries Your generous donation will be used to ensure the memory of our Defence Forces and what they have done for us and what they continue to do for our freedom remains – today and into the future Help preserve Australia's history by transcribing records from the National Collection Enhance accessibility and discoverability for all Australians is a new initiative designed to record the locations and photographs of every publicly accessible memorial across Australia The Australian War Memorial is open for visitors as we work to expand our galleries Entry is free and tickets are not required 10 am to 4 pm daily (except Christmas Day) In preparation for the daily Last Post Ceremony galleries are progressively closed from 3:40 pm Subscribe Ahead of International Women’s Day (March 8) we are featuring stories that illustrate women’s resilience in the face of adversity and situations of conflict An ambulance driver examines her vehicle’s engine before departure © Imperial War Museum London / hist-00215-55 Millions of women have paid – and are still paying – a heavy price in armed conflicts: violence including sexual violence; forced displacement; the loss or disappearance of their loved ones; being deprived of their freedom But although war often puts them in dangerous situations Sometimes they play an active role during a war or fighters in the military or other armed groups among those who bring help and protection to the victims of war Go to the Photo Gallery Tags: , 1925–1997Following14Follow1414 FollowersAlistair Grant was born on June 3rd 1925 in West Kensington He studied at Birmingham College of Art from 1941-43 where he was taught still-life drawing and painting by Fleetwood-Walker He was then conscripted into the Royal Air Force and … The most severe pandemic in recent history may have emerged up to two years earlier than previously believed according to a new study by Queen Mary University of London researchers The study also found that the Spanish Influenza’s early manifestation was ignored at the time as a "minor infection" if doctors had recognised that influenza was the cause of an illness which was killing soldiers in Etaples scientists could have then created a vaccination programme and some of the worst effects of the Spanish Influenza could have been avoided Published in the journal Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics the study uses modern day scientific technology and literature published in The Lancet from the time to not only track the origins of the virus but to seek how we can learn from the past to prevent the spread of an influenza pandemic a virologist from the Blizard Institute said: "We have identified long-neglected outbreaks of infection: outbreaks which "The research undertaken in the production of the Etaples paper was particularly exhaustive in its scope and depth Not only were the usual examinations undertaken but a postmortem examination was conducted of every single soldier dying of disease throughout a period of seven weeks in early 1917." traced the origins of the Spanish Influenza as it emerged in 1915 and 1916 in the Etaples Administrative District in northern France up to 30,000 soldiers were admitted each year to British army hospitals in France and England a medical group in Etaples treated hundreds of patients infected with what they described as an "unusually fatal disease" presenting "complex" respiratory symptoms three senior physicians were also tackling a problem whose hallmarks looked very much the same the disease was characterised by a rapid progression from quite minor symptoms to death Both medical groups were encountering a case fatality in the order of 50 per cent and they were learning from colleagues in England and France that the malady was occurring elsewhere It is this information which has helped Professor Oxford and Gill to track what was then believed to be a minor respiratory infection as the very origins of the biggest killing pandemic of the 20th century The findings are further supported in modern papers analysed by Professor Oxford and Gill which point to all eight genes of the H1N1 family of influenza A viruses as emerging in 1915-16 These modern studies have also shown that the 'emerging virus' began with aquatic geese It is likely that this disease was then passed on to the soldiers through the faeces of migrating water birds Recent experiments with a pre-pandemic 'bird flu' called H5N1 have shown that as few as five mutations could have permitted this change to take place "We appreciate today that a unique characteristic of a pre-pandemic virus lies in its inability to spread from person to person were misled by the lack of spread of this infection they failed to pinpoint influenza as the underlying cause "Once the virus is able to spread from human to human With a generation time of two to three days from just three patients who were infected originally a million infections can be caused in around 40 days And this is probably exactly what happened in 1918-19." the World Health Organization is on full alert; and every nation in the world has been asked to plan for a pandemic of bird influenza A (H5N1) or (H7N9) By understanding the origins of The Spanish Influenza through analysing modern day research and papers written in 1917 it is hoped this study could help prevent a new influenza pandemic Professor Oxford added: "Something similar to what happened at the beginning of the twentieth century could easily be repeated governments everywhere are stockpiling vaccines against the pneumococcus that usually develops as a secondary infection after the flu and which causes fatalities on a very large scale." Joel WinstonPublic Relations ManagerQueen Mary University of Londonemail: j.winston@qmul.ac.uk You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed Poet and pacifist Vera Brittain was a Red Cross nurse during the First World War she writes about her experiences as a nurse in the UK where she was based at a military hospital near Étaples Life as a First World War volunteer (or VAD) was tough Volunteers fulfilled a range of roles from ambulance drivers to cooks but most of the 90,000 were women who signed up as novice nurses long hours and poor living conditions were just the tip of the iceberg for these raw recruits.Their on-the-job training Vera Brittain describes in her memoir as “a baptism of blood and pus” Vera writes about her experiences as a nurse and in one extract she describes treating the victims of gas attacks: “…the hut was reserved for gassed cases and I had once again the task of attending to the blinded eyes and scorched throats and blistered bodies which made the struggle for life such a half-hearted affair.” fiancé and closest friends in the war which turned her into a life-long pacifist and anti-war campaigner When war broke out Vera abandoned her studies at Oxford to become a nurse out of a strong sense of duty fiancé Roland and two close friends Geoffrey and Victor fighting the all-consuming life of a Red Cross VAD was “the next best thing” to going to the front for a provincial girl from a privileged background With women’s options so limited before the war earn a wage and maybe even work overseas was a big deal "After 20 years of sheltered gentility I certainly did feel that whatever the disadvantages of my present occupation I was at least seeing life,” she writes she transferred to the 1st London General in Camberwell Volunteers during the World War One were housed in an uncomfortable and ill-equipped hostel They shared small rooms divided into cubicles by curtains and washed in the dark early mornings with icy water from a basin Though her first sight of a gangrenous leg wound with the bone laid bare” made her feel sick and faint it was the “general atmosphere of inhumanness” that bothered her more In those early days Vera thought that the balanced efficiency of the experienced nurses demonstrated an “immunity from pity” “I would rather suffer ever so much in my work than become indifferent to pain,” she reflects “I don’t mind anything really so long as I don’t lose my personality.” The other advantage of keeping so busy was the distraction from the torment of worrying about loved ones loving Roland was the other major thing keeping her personality The amazing thing about the memoir is how modern Vera seems The way she writes about the optimism of youth thrill of work and the excitement of young love could be the experiences of any woman in her early twenties She paints such a vivid picture of the ominous atmosphere of dread following orders to clear out recovering patients on the eve of a big battle her incredible powers of storytelling give us such a vivid insight into her experiences she applies to go overseas and is sent to Malta with Red Cross travelling on a repurposed ocean liner – the Britannic – which was built as the sister ship to the Titanic She and her friend are given a luxury cabin in the bowels of the ship considering the high risk of being torpedoed The final chapter of her VAD career is in France After the deaths of her fiancé and two dear friends she and her fellow nurses forego leave and work round the clock caring for the German prisoners of war the distinctions between military nurses and Red Cross VADs disappear as they work together as equals In a hospital made of tents in the middle of winter Vera encounters the harshest conditions yet and the most badly injured men – fresh from combat “At least a third were dying; their daily dressings were not a mere matter of changing huge wads of stained gauze and wool replacing intestines and draining and re-inserting innumerable rubber tubes.” Queen Mary inspecting Red Cross and St John VADs serving in St John hospital at Etaples which will soon claim the life of her only brother duty calls and she’s ordered home to nurse her ailing mother This prompts one of her most interesting reflections on women in wartime “What exhausts women in wartime is not the strenuous and unfamiliar tasks that fall upon them nor even the hourly dread of death for husbands or lovers or brothers or sons; it is the incessant conflict between personal and national claims which wears out their energy and breaks their spirit.” Meet the amazing volunteers who kept the Red Cross going during the First World War Peggy Arnold was a WW1 nurse serving on the frontline These letters from our archive show the challenges of nursing during difficult times ©2025 British Red Cross The British Red Cross Society is a charity registered in England and Wales (220949) The Pearl Harbor attack by Japan against America is one of the most devastating surprise attacks in modern history Roosevelt correctly called it a day that will live in infamy The event continues to lead to questions about how an attack like this could happen the nations had friction for years leading up to the event and the US Navy even trained for war with Japan for the previous 20 years But a study of other surprises throughout history suggests that surprise isn’t a conspiracy theory to draw the nation into war but happens more often than is commonly thought and it reinforces why and how America should guard against the next one The biggest factor that helps surprise is the Boy Who Cried Wolf effect the boy made so many false alarms that when the wolf actually attacked nobody believed him intelligence officials received reports with numerous indications of the impending Japanese attack Historian Roberta Wohlstetter “argued that although there had been numerous warnings of a Japanese threat the large ratio of extraneous noise to meaningful signals made analysis of the data difficult: ‘In short we failed to anticipate Pearl Harbor not for want of the relevant materials The volumes that intelligence services received at the time led to a good deal of chaff and useless intel that obscured the accurate intelligence It is easy to notice the correct reports after the fact but it was difficult to identify them at the time especially after the US Navy had issued several alarms in the previous months Combined with numerous false alarms in the weeks before the attack such as a “war is imminent” telegram on November 27 the military had general warnings but nothing specific and it made the Pearl Harbor attack a stunning surprise from Japanese forces got a war warning of his own from Washington reflected the peculiar reality that no single person commanded the military there The duality could easily lead to poor assumptions about who was doing what Seeing nothing in the Army’s warning about a threat to Oahu Short opted to guard not against an external threat but against saboteurs who might be lurking among the thousands of Oahu residents of Japanese descent.” Harvard historian Ernest May says that Pearl Harbor military leaders were told in the spring of 1941 to be aware of Sunday attacks A year earlier the French experienced a devastating surprise attack by the Germans France and Great Britain declared war on Germany when the latter invaded Poland in the fall of 1939 so little happened between the belligerents that they called this period the Phoney War They were in a state of war against an aggressive enemy and they knew an attack was coming But they didn’t know the “when” and were surprised by the “where” of the attack when the Germans unleashed their devastating blitzkrieg against France the following spring A part of this had to do with where the Germans attacked The Allies expected an attack similar to Germany’s attack in World War I through the relatively flat plains of Belgium But that only moved the Allied forces into a trap when the Germans attacked through the Ardennes forest The Ardennes forest attack was such a surprise because it was considered an unsuitable location for a massive But the biggest surprise was created by the same factors that surprised America The Germans delayed their invasion of France several times while the high command tinkered with the details “But when all of the troops were finally in place nothing happened….H[itler] issued a weather-related postponement pushing back the invasion date by three days Fourteen additional postponements followed.” creating so many false starts and people who cried wolf that additional movements were considered too minor to be a signal for an attack The French misread the relatively small troop movements as insignificant disregarded the signs of an impending attack given the continuing threats from a nuclear North Korea offensive wars with each of their neighbors A missile strike at the US fleet based in Japan remains a distinct possibility The North Korean regime has shown little ability to operate within traditional international frameworks which means the Cold War policy that contained and deterred a nuclear Soviet Union doesn’t apply to them Despite Mitt Romney being mocked for listing Russia as a geopolitical threat it has shown a tendency to use aggressive and subversive action with both traditional and nontraditional means to seize or undermine territory stretching from the Crimean peninsula Read another story from us: The Japanese Tried A Second Raid On Pearl Harbor – It Was Not A Success President Lincoln said that the best way to honor the dead is to most highly resolve that the dead should not have died in vain We can honor the dead at Pearl Harbor by being vigilant in guarding against a potential next attack The disturbances in the world can’t simply become background noise If these potential attacks are not taken seriously every time despite the numerous times they turn out to be false alarms then America could again be the victim of a sneak attack Morgan Deane is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE upset and disgusted" after seeing a British war memorial in France covered with anti-war graffiti was daubed in red paint with slogans including "Rosbeefs [British] go home" "Saddam will win and he will make you bleed" and "Dig up your rubbish Some 11,000 British servicemen and women are buried at the cemetery most of whom died defending France in the first world war They alerted the commission's French division who set to work removing the paint from the memorial which is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year Two workers spent two days cleaning off the paint and grinding down the stone to remove the shadow of the words left behind said vandalism at the thousands of sites looked after by the organisation was rare but this incident was "particularly foul" "The reaction of the people who found it was shock I think that was also the reaction of the local people and the French authorities and the gendarmerie is now watching the site," he said Mr Francis added that two coach-loads of around 80 British tourists had arrived at the cemetery shortly after the graffiti was discovered last Thursday "I certainly hope this would not happen again because war cemeteries are not the place to make a political statement They are there to commemorate the people and the human price paid to defeat tyranny," he said the Socialist former education and culture minister who represents the Pas-de-Calais region in the French National Assembly He told the local Voix du Nord newspaper: "This scandalous desecration attacks the memory of the sacrifice of British and American soldiers who courageously contributed to the liberation of France." a British consular official in northern France told the same paper that the vandalism did not appear to tally with the views of ordinary people in the region Opinion polls for the whole of France since the start of the war have shown strong support for French president Jacques Chirac's stance on the crisis A poll carried out for newspaper Le Monde and television station TF1 and published on March 31 found that nearly three-quarters (74%) believed Mr Chirac had not gone too far in voicing his opposition to the White House Support for the French premier was particularly strong younger people under the age of 35 and those in senior management positions SubscriptionOffers Give a Gift Subscribe Eric Ives shows how his work throws new light on the Henrician Reformation The name of the poet Nicholas Bourbon the elder is unlikely to turn up in a game of Trivial Pursuits because of his friendship with vernacular writers such as François Rabelais and Clémont Marot Bourbon’s verse enjoyed a European reputation his adopted city: ‘Mantua boasts of Virgil Greece of Homer; the region of Lyons rejoices in Borbonius’ What makes Bourbon interesting for British historians is that in 1534 he visited England and nearly fifty of his poems were written about England addressed to Englishmen or were composed there They appear in the third book he published printed at Lyons in 1538 under the grandiloquent title Nicolai Borbonii Vandoperani Lingonensis Nugarum Libri Octo ac Auctore Rescens Aucti et Recogniti that is Eight Books of Trifles by Nicolas Borbonius of Lyons professional writer to sixteenth-century England but his visit at the height of the early Reformation is also a useful reminder of the links between religious affairs in England and across the Channel The connection with France is often overlooked Henry VIII spent almost a third of his time fighting or preparing to fight the French but he also competed jealously with Francis I ‘his brother of France’ over everything from palace decoration to the muscles of the respective royal legs Early religious reform in France was noticeably moderate men like Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and Guillaume Briçonnet was on personal spirituality inspired by a direct engagement with Christ through a Bible shorn of medieval glosses and embodying the best of humanist scholarship which makes ‘evangelical’ a convenient adjective to describe the movement It was a message which effectively marginalised the elaborate penitential machinery of shrines rituals and so forth which preoccupied the late medieval church but many found it attractive His sister Marguerite was a notable evangelical and Bourbon was her client Nicholas Bourbon was the son of an ironmaster but he did not follow his father into the business Instead he studied at the College de Troyes and by the time he reached thirty had become a recognised Latinist teaching in Paris It was there in 1533 that he published his first book under the simple title Nicolai Borbonii Vandoperani Nugae It was republished in 1538 as the first of the Libri Octo England comes into Bourbon’s story because Anne Boleyn the key evangelical figure at the English court The most striking evidence of this is in the reformist books from French presses that she collected including her copy of Lefèvre’s French translation of the Bible Some were specially translated for her by her younger brother vividly described seeing Anne early in 1529 immersed in a French translation of St Paul’s letters almost certainly Lefèvre’s earlier version of the New Testament which conservatives in Parish had wanted burned The origin of such interests was very probably the religious atmosphere of the household of Claude Anne joined this in 1514 and became intimate enough with the queen for Francis to protest when she was called back to England in 1521 Anne’s evangelical sympathies were well known on the continent Bourbon’s friend Clémont Marot prepared for her either on his own behalf or for a like-minded patron a ‘customised’ version of his Sermon du bon pasteur et du mauvais highlighted with colour and adorned with a superb illumination of the queen’s arms surrounded by a wreath of oak leaves and Tudor roses the poem extols Henry as the ally of Francis I and concludes with a celebration of Anne Boleyn as the hope of the Tudor dynasty Anne was known to be willing to offer sanctuary to reformers from across the Channel that she should come to Bourbon’s assistance when his first Nugae got him into trouble in 1533 Soon after publication he had been arrested and accused before the Parlement of Paris of attacking the church Although released from prison in March 1534 on the personal order of Francis I this was on condition that he admitted that his verses had gone too far and with the warning to keep on the right side of the church in future The experience cost him more than a spell in prison and humiliation Bourbon’s release was in response to a request from Henry VIII Precisely how the queen of England came to know of the poet’s plight is not clear Bourbon names his contact in England as one of Anne’s evangelical allies but he also hints at the involvement of Jean de Dinteville De Dinteville received a teasing poem about his mistress (the two men had been at school together) while in a letter from France soon after he left England Bourbon said of Butts: ‘There is no one to whom you could more safely commit your health than to Dr Butts I hold this man in the highest esteem for his own worth’ Bourbon arrived in England in the spring of 1534 the king’s goldsmith – where he complained of the cold – and Anne Boleyn put him to his profession teaching a select group of boys from her circle There was her nephew Henry Carey who would be ennobled by her daughter as Lord Hunsdon Henry Norris who would be another of Elizabeth’s favourites Henry Dudley was the son of John Dudley the future Duke of Northumberland and brother to Robert Dudley The boys were about ten years old and for them Bourbon published in 1536 and later included in the Nugarum Libri Octo Bourbon lionised among the resident foreign community sucked up to the élite and everywhere he wrote verses First place among the recipients of Boubon’s ‘English’ verses goes to Anne Boleyn She figures in six poems and joins the king in a seventh Thomas Cromwell in two and in another Cranmer and Cromwell figure together two for John Dudley and two for Henry Knyvet of the Privy Chamber In the nature of the classical models that he followed Bourbon’s epigrams and short poems aim for wit and elegance In the first place we can tell what this intelligent foreigner picked up of affairs in England A particular instance is a poem entitled ‘To that famous Englishman Thomas Cromwell’ which begins with an allusion to classical beliefs about omens: The cause of these congratulations is clearly Cromwell’s appointment in January 1535 as vicegerent Henry VIII’s chief executive for church affairs Whether – with Bourbon only nine months in England – this was a first-hand assessment is More likely he had picked up the excitement in reforming circles at an appointment that promised final defeat for the traditionalists in the church Bourbon was probably also repeating what he had been told when he attributed Hugh Latimer’s appointment in September 1535 as bishop of Worcester jointly to ‘the King and Queen Anne who suppress the unworthy and promote the deserving’ An earlier verse that praises Latimer’s preaching skills – Bourbon calls him the ‘exhorter’ – may even have been composed before he left France on the basis of reformist gossip He became friendly enough with Butts to make the royal physician the target of considerable ribbing He was either a Frenchman or an Italian and abstinence was ‘contrary to nature and his national custom’ Thereupon the doctor’s son Edmund sneaked in a flagon from the cellar of William Boston The fever went and Butts received the following In a poem of 1538-39 that prefaced a collection of Holbein’s Old Testament woodcuts Bourbon ran out of superlatives: the artist outclassed Apelles and Parrhasios and that third miracle of the ancient world Bourbon’s verses also hint at Holbein’s lost output The comments on his own portrait show that the chalk drawing which survives in the Royal Collection at Windsor clearly was worked up into a finished portrait but Bourbon must have taken it back to France with him since a woodcut in the 1538 Lyons edition of the Nugae Libri Octo was taken from it Another poem praises Holbein’s ‘lifelike’ portrayal of death The most likely occasion for such a subject would be an ‘entombment’ Holbein did paint at least one traditional votive piece for the English market Another poem describes the homoerotic impact of his image of a sleeping Cupid: Since Bourbon refers to the piece as painted on ivory it was in miniature and possibly an example of one of the prestige objets d’art the painter was noted for Bourbon’s writings also provide a roll call of evangelicals in England in the early 1530s The appearance of Holbein confirms a commitment to reform which is sometimes queried One name that may seem unexpected is that of John Dudley It is usual to dismiss the Protestantism that Dudley espoused in the reign of Edward VI as something assumed for profit with his eldest son going to the reformist Bourbon for lessons and the poet urging Sir John and his wife to ‘remain true to Christ’ it appears that Dudley was telling the truth when he said in 1552 ‘I have for twenty years stood to one kind of religion The considerable prominence which Bourbon gives to William Boston suggests an evangelical whom historians have badly undervalued Cromwell and Latimer (who preached for him) Boston had supported the royal divorce officiated at Anne Boleyn’s coronation and at the christening of Princess Elizabeth In 1539 he would support Cranmer in the battle to keep conservative reaction at bay Book Two of Bourbon’s Nugae Libri Octo is dedicated to Boston and it depicts a good scholar and a generous man who liked his wine suffered from gout and was foremost among the higher clergy in enjoying a joke At the centre of this evangelical nexus was Anne Boleyn Bourbon does not merely praise Anne for rescuing him He celebrates their shared understanding of Christ: ‘Your French’ because of Anne’s known love for the country of her adolescence a ‘Golden Age’ because reformers across the Channel will follow her example The only one of Bourbon’s ‘English’ poems not favourable to its subject is the poem about Thomas More It has alternate lines in Latin and Greek and plays on the name More as an echo of two Greek words Orders to discharge the poet from his Paris prison were given on Thursday which meant that he could have got across the Channel and met the ex-chancellor before More was taken into custody on April 13th for refusing to swear to the 1534 Succession Act supporting the Boleyn marriage But can we imagine any of Bourbon’s evangelical contacts in England taking him to see More still less a man of Bourbon’s reformed persuasion going to visit Chelsea alone or being welcomed there A more likely occasion was after the interview of April 13th in the hope that he could be persuaded to conform was put in the custody of Bourbon’s patron William Boston It must be that it was then that Bourbon met him and added his persuasions to those of his host since More never mentioned meeting so distinguished a humanist we can conclude what Sir Thomas thought of him A meeting in Boston’s household would certainly suggest that the pun which Bourbon attributes to More is genuine It accurately reflects the position Sir Thomas adopted when first detained: he might be thought a fool but safety lay in the folly of keeping his thoughts to himself It is also significant that Bourbon described More’s behaviour as ‘sacrilegious’ (literally ‘God-hating’) Evidently he appreciated or had been told that More was refusing to recognise that it was God who had given Henry VIII supremacy over the church ‘like a usurper’ (literally ‘tyrannically’) the probable reference was to More’s disloyal use of his office and influence to oppose the king’s will Nicholas Bourbon does not say that he saw More die and he left England before the evangelical circle he cherished was itself shaken by the destruction of Anne Boleyn in May 1536 The poems dedicated to her were not tactfully suppressed or reworked for a new sponsor – something he often did who proclaimed to Europe that Anne had been condemned ‘on a false charge of adultery’ He arrived to find the religious situation in France totally transformed a number of broadsheets [placards] had appeared in Paris and even at the royal court great and insufferable abuses of the papal mass’ and on his return Bourbon felt it wiser to keep out of the public eye and see his verses through the press at Lyons a good deal luckier than his friends in England A conservative reaction there effectively forced Hugh Latimer to resign his see in 1539 was executed and Thomas Cranmer was left struggling to keep evangelical religion alive was engaged by Marguerite of Navarre to tutor her daughter Jean and so attained the staunchest of protectors Eventually he retired to a small country living and died in 1550 To the end he acted as France’s unofficial Latin poet laureate but he seems never to have written of England again Eric Ives is Emeritus Professor of English History at the University of Birmingham and the author of Anne Boleyn (Basil Blackwell gouache on grey laid paper mounted on buff paper It’s Spring 1915 and a lone soldier stands on guard outside a prisoners’ tent The guards’ tent is brilliantly lit by hurricane lamps and the warm red glow of the gas stoves the men use to boil their billies The surrounding prisoners’ tents have been plunged into darkness after an early lights out It’s a moment in time that was captured more than 100 years ago in a deceptively simple pastel and gouache drawing titled Sentries at prisoners' tent by the Australian artist Iso Rae Iso Rae photographed with British soldiers outside the Cinema Office This is the building depicted by Rae in her work Cinema queue Photo: ©Quentovic Museum-City of Étaples-sur-Mer One of only two Australian women artists who were able to depict the First World War from such close quarters But she produced more than 200 pastel drawings while working for the British Red Cross’s Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) in the large army camp at her adopted home of Étaples making observational drawings of hospitals Her drawings reflect a woman's perspective of the war but of everyday events behind the lines: preparing for battle and entertaining the troops with football games Rae’s works are an important part of the art collection at the Australian War Memorial A French soldier with his mount at the camp at Étaples providing a rare view of the war through a feminine lens “The fact that these wonderful drawings exist at all is remarkable,” Torrens said “Australian women were excluded from the creation of a national visual record of the war “There were of course the restrictions of gender and geography at the time and then no Australian official war artists were women “This was largely due to a conviction that artists needed to have experience of the battlefield to create authentic images of the Australian experience of war was as close as any Australian woman could be living and working amidst the largest allied military camp in France German prisoners of war repairing pavement on a railway platform in August 1860 and studied at the National Gallery School in Melbourne with the Irish-born Australian painter and art teacher Her fellow students included the likes of Tom Roberts She travelled to France with her mother and sister in 1887 before moving to the artists’ colony of Étaples three years later Rae worked alongside Australian artists such as Hilda Rix Nicholas and Rupert Bunny often large in scale and painted outdoors – en plein air – depicting the landscapes and people of Étaples but Rae and her sister Alison refused to leave Their mother was unwell and they were reluctant to move her pastel with carbon pencil on thick grey flecked paper Australian troops marching into ‘Anzac Camp’ at the Étaples army camp Alison shared her fears and hopes in a letter to a friend in Australia shortly after “I have not had the heart to write,” Alison wrote “We are in the midst of a very terrible war and I cannot tell you how many thousands of English [British] soldiers have passed through here during the last fortnight on their way to the seat of war “We live quite near the station and from the upper windows see many of the trains pass “Some jump out on the platform to shake hands and talk for a few minutes before being borne swiftly away again – perhaps forever.. “I cannot write of all the things we have been through since But we do not want to break up our home unless absolutely obliged to do so.” the small fishing port of Étaples became the largest British army base of the war It was used as a training and retraining ground for forces about to enter battle and was the site of several large hospitals which were set up to treat the wounded from the Somme battlefields on the Western Front Australian troops were stationed at Étaples until June 1917 but wounded Australians were sent to the hospitals there throughout the war more than 100,000 troops were camped among the sand dunes and the hospitals were able to deal with 22,000 wounded and sick at any one time More than 100 trains passed through on the railway there each day “Iso Rae’s drawings were essentially private records unshaped by political or official agenda,” Torrens said “They allow us to see wartime Étaples through her eyes It’s the view looking down from the flat where she lived with her sister The composition of the work shows the pervasiveness of the military presence drawing our eye along the busy thoroughfare towards the sprawling tent city which fills the horizon “Others reveal the grim reality of the camp theatrical entertainment for men who were ‘NYD’ (not yet diagnosed) or shell shocked Infantry returning from training ground (Bull Ring) there was a series of mutinies in the camp as soldiers protested against the harsh treatment and conditions The mutinies were largely censored at the time Her drawing Troops in Town after Riots Previous Sunday shows the town square teeming with military police as troops who had been confined to their quarters on the other side of the river were allowed into the town “Her work is proof that the mutinies actually happened,” Torrens said “In addition to their documentary value today Rae’s drawings are a unique artistic depiction of the war she was exploring the compositional opportunities presented in the shapes and repetitive patterns of tents or the aesthetic possibilities in contrasts of light and dark Rae the artist was making the best of a career interrupted in conditions that were far from ideal for art-making “You can see some of the paper she used is quite rudimentary but she went from someone who was painting post-Impressionist style paintings [outdoors] on canvas to using paper and pastel and whatever she had available to document what was happening around her “The paint and canvas were either something she couldn’t afford or something that was simply not available to her at that time pastels and pencil in a much smaller style “She was trying to make the best art in conditions that weren’t very conducive to it “It would have been quite brutal and scary at times “They were actually there when Étaples was bombed.. “Alison’s foot was quite badly wounded in the shelling “Iso had all this going on in the background Rae and her sister moved to the nearby town of Trepied to recover  Their mother had died during the war in 1916 Rae and her sister eventually returned to Étaples where they were regular visitors at the nearby British Military Cemetery Rae wrote to her friends in Australia: “I found the grave I wanted and the head-gardener snipped me off a tiny rose bud to send to the mother of the boy buried there Alarmed by Hitler’s rise to power in Germany Rae and her sister moved to England in 1934 and settled at St Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex Alison shared their fears and concerns about the coming of the next war in letters to her friends in Australia: “Over in our dear France there must be great distress and anxiety concerning the future She was admitted to the Brighton Mental Hospital in November 1939 and died four months later at the age of 79 the Australian War Memorial holds 18 of her drawings in its collection “Her works are incredibly rare,” Torrens said “And she hasn’t really received the recognition that she deserves because she lived overseas and never returned to Australia “It really is an incredible private record of what life was like in Étaples during the war but her wartime works weren’t even that well known until they were discovered in the 1970s “Seventy-five of her pastel drawings were brought to Australia in the 1970s and the Memorial purchased nine of them at the time “They not only document what life was like behind the lines but are also really significant for their quality “And although she was never an official war artist they remain a poignant reminder of the everyday lives of the men and women who served and died during the First World War By drawing out lesser-known works by women who painted alongside now-famous men About one third of the way into She-Oak and Sunlight, there is a room off to one side filled with images so vibrant, so unexpected, it throws me completely. All of the pictures in it are small – they’re referred to as the 9 by 5s due to the size, in inches, of the panels they’re painted on – many of them on the lids of cigar boxes. This is as close as any of us will ever come to attending the original 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition in 1889, with over 50 of those 182 works brought back together by NGV Australia and displayed almost as they were when they first were shown to the public. Read moreThere’s the picture that gives the exhibition its name: a soft surreal-yet-familiar rendering of trees on a golden landscape There are dreamy images of both country and city I expected an exhibition of Australian Impressionism to be predominantly pictures of men sitting on logs and there are plenty of both – but She-Oak and Sunlight puts these in a larger context whether it’s two boys playing violin or a country field in peaceful twilight These are fleeting moments that we feel lucky now to see Clara Southern’s An old bee farm Photograph: NGV Australia“It’s about capturing an experience of being in a place,” says Angela Hesson The exact definition of Australian Impressionism can be difficult to nail down she clarifies – the work produced during the period between 1883 and 1895 was diverse and often deviated from the loose rules the artists set themselves – but NGV Australia’s new exhibition attempts to represent the breadth of that diversity Hesson quotes the catalogue put out by the artists of the 9 by 5 exhibition: “An effect is only momentary; so an impressionist tries to find his place.” She pauses to think of such familiar images as revolutionary or rebellious but that’s exactly what Australian Impressionism was “Impressionism generally was criticised for what was perceived as a lack of discipline and a lack of technique – Impressionist artists were accused of kind of lazily exhibiting sketches,” says Hesson “And women were particularly subject to those kinds of criticisms.” The main tale of She-Oak and Sunlight is of four leading figures of the movement in Australia: Arthur Streeton It starts off with a wall of pictures of artists as illustrated either by themselves or by fellow artists and draws out connections from there: letters they wrote to each other; influences One wall shows the same scene painted years apart from two different artists’ perspectives one by Claude Monet and one by John Russell showing how the friendship between the two men influenced each other’s work Installation view of She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia Photograph: Tom Ross/NGV AustraliaWhile their stories are interesting in both how they evolve and intertwine NGV has also newly acquired works by artists Iso Rae Jane Price and Ina Gregory – and it’s the lesser-known works by the women who painted alongside the now-famous men that allow the exhibition to tell a fuller story “This isn’t specific to Impressionism,” Hesson explains “This is a much broader art history problem … women are underrepresented in our collection and in most collections – and so we have been looking wherever possible to rectify that.” Impressionist artists were accused of lazily exhibiting sketches and women were particularly subject to those criticismsAngela HessonDespite many women painters being involved in Impressionism at the time none of the original 9 by 5 works were by women The lack of representation is multifactorial “There was a strong network of mutual support among all the artists so I think it was really a mark of much broader gender politics of the period,” says Hesson Women were held to different standards from their male counterparts “The first solo exhibition of Ina Gregory’s work was compared to a shopkeeper’s window,” Hesson explains “The reviewer said that [Gregory] didn’t know how to edit her work – so there’s this idea that a lack of discipline is potentially gendered.” women couldn’t stay overnight at artists camps completely changes their capacity to immerse themselves in those kinds of landscapes,” says Hesson ‘Women are underrepresented in our collection, and in most collections,’ says curator Angela Hesson. Photograph: Tom Ross/NGV AustraliaDespite the challenges, the quality of the women’s work is clear; hung alongside the paintings of their male counterparts they easily hold their own – though there are some key and consistent differences. “A lot of the women from this period are painting on a smaller scale,” says Hesson. For female Impressionists we see “very few large-scale works, in part because they often didn’t have the commercial success of their male counterparts, and artists’ materials were expensive.” Read moreEven though they often sold their work for 10% of what their male counterparts received even though their works are often literally smaller they kept creating – and now those works are being appreciated and included This fuller picture of Australian Impressionism will feed directly into the NGV’s Winter Masterpieces exhibition She-Oak and Sunlight is all about relationships It’s easy to think of eras that have passed out of living memory as static but She-Oak and Sunlight challenges the legacy of Impressionist exhibitions that have come before by both filling in the gaps and providing deeper context candid and colourful glimpse into a time that we often think of in black and white She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism is showing at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia Curator Alex Torrens with Iso Rae's Boiling the Billy Alex Torrens couldn’t believe it when she opened her email at the Australian War Memorial was a message offering the Memorial a rare pastel drawing from the First World War The art curator had missed out on the chance to acquire a drawing by the same artist just months before basically offering this wonderful drawing to us The drawing was by the Australian-born impressionist painter Iso Rae who was living and working at an artists’ colony at Étaples in northern France when the First World War broke out This is the building depicted by Rae in her work Cinema queue She remained at Étaples for the rest of the war and was one of only two Australian women artists who were able to depict the war at such close quarters Although she was not an official war artist Rae produced some 200 pastel drawings while working for the Voluntary Aid Detachment of the British Red Cross (VAD) in the large army camp at Étaples from 1915 to 1919 depicts a group of soldiers relaxing around a small campfire It was donated to the Memorial by the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters in Brisbane The Holy Spirit Sisters have their own remarkable war history from the Second World War who survived Japanese prison camps and death ships in Papua New Guinea They joined five other sisters who had trekked for months across the mountains and valleys of Papua New Guinea The Sisters set up a convent at Raff Farm in the Brisbane suburb of Apsley in March 1945 and were the beneficiaries of several artworks from the estate of the well-known Queensland art collector and patron of the Art Gallery of Queensland Torrens said the Sisters wanted the Iso Rae drawing to be part of a public collection “Her work is incredibly rare,” Torrens said “The Memorial only has three other of Rae’s drawings from 1915 so it’s added another vignette from that time period and is a significant addition to the collection “The drawing is one of 75 which are known to have been brought out to Australia from Europe in the 1970s At the time the Memorial was able to purchase a small selection “It’s an incredible private record of what life was like .. and although she wasn’t an official war artist so donations like these are incredibly important They enables us to really develop that collection in a way that just wouldn’t be possible without the generosity of these owners and private collectors Read more about Iso Rae's life and work here abaturage bo mu mugi wa Meaux uri hafi y’i Paris bumvise ikintu kidasanzwe basomewe Ivanjiri mu rurimi rwabo kavukire rw’igifaransa aho kuyisomerwa mu kilatini nk’uko byari bisanzwe Uwari wahinduye ayo Mavanjiri ari we Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples yaje kwandikira incuti ye ayibwira ati “ntushobora kwiyumvisha ukuntu Imana irimo gufasha abantu boroheje gusobanukirwa Ijambo ryayo!” Kiliziya Gatolika n’abahanga muri tewolojiya b’i Paris babuzaga abantu gusoma Bibiliya zihinduye mu ndimi zivugwa na rubanda None se ni iki cyatumye Lefèvre ahindura Bibiliya mu gifaransa Yafashije ate abantu boroheje gusobanukirwa Ijambo ry’Imana yakundaga gushakisha ibisobanuro by’inyandiko za filozofiya na tewolojiya Yaje gutahura ko inyandiko za kera zarimo amakosa menshi kandi ko zayobeje abantu mu gihe cy’imyaka myinshi Igihe yakoraga ubushakashatsi ngo asobanukirwe inyandiko za kera ni bwo yatangiye kugenzura yitonze Bibiliya y’Abagatolika y’ikilatini yitwa Vulgate yaravuze ati “kwiga ukuri ko mu Ijambo ry’Imana ni byo byonyine biduhesha ibyishimo.” Ni yo mpamvu yaretse kwiga filozofiya ahubwo agashyira imbaraga ze zose ku murimo wo guhindura Bibiliya Amazina y’Imana n’inyuguti enye z’igiheburayo zigize izina ry’Imana Kubera ko Lefèvre yari yarakuriye mu idini rya Gatolika yumvaga ko kuvugurura inyigisho za Kiliziya byashoboka ari uko gusa rubanda rwa giseseka rwigishijwe neza ibyanditswe Ariko se rubanda rwari kumenya rute Ibyanditswe byera Lefèvre yagaragaje ko yifuza gufasha abantu gusoma Bibiliya mu rurimi bumva Kubera ko Lefèvre yakundaga Ijambo ry’Imana cyane yakoze uko ashoboye kugira ngo rigere ku bantu benshi muri Kamena 1523 yasohoye amavanjiri ahinduye mu gifaransa Kubera ko izo Bibiliya zari nto kandi zikaba zaraguraga kimwe cya kabiri cy’amafaranga yagura Bibiliya isanzwe abantu badafite amikoro na bo bashoboraga kuyibona Rubanda rwa giseseka rwishimiye cyane iyo Bibiliya Abagabo n’abagore bari bashishikariye gusoma amagambo ya Yesu mu rurimi rwabo ku buryo mu mezi make hahise hagurwa Bibiliya 1.200 Lefèvre yasobanuye ko yayahinduye mu gifaransa kugira ngo “abayoboke ba kiliziya boroheje bayasobanukirwe nk’uko abayasoma mu kilatini bayasobanukirwa.” None se kuki Lefèvre yifuzaga cyane gufasha rubanda rwa giseseka gusobanukirwa Bibiliya Lefèvre yari azi neza ukuntu inyigisho z’abantu na filozofiya byagize ingaruka ku bayoboke ba Kiliziya Gatolika (Mariko 7:7; Abakolosayi 2:8) Yumvaga ko igihe cyari kigeze ngo Ivanjiri “yamamazwe mu isi yose maze abantu bareke gukomeza kuyobywa n’inyigisho z’abantu.” Nanone Lefèvre yashakaga gushyira ahabona ibirego by’ibinyoma by’abarwanyaga umushinga we wo guhindura Bibiliya mu gifaransa. Yagaragaje uburyarya bwabo agira ati “bakwigisha abantu bate kwitondera amategeko ya Yesu Kristo, niba batareka ngo abantu boroheje  basome Ivanjiri mu rurimi rwabo?”—Abaroma 10:14 Ntibitangaje kuba abahanga muri tewolojiya bo muri Kaminuza y’i Sorbonne mu mugi wa Paris barahise bashaka kumucecekesha abo bahanga barwanyije abahinduraga Bibiliya mu ndimi kavukire n’ibitabo bisobanura Bibiliya bakabafata nk’“abanzi ba Kiliziya.” Iyo Umwami Francis I w’u Bufaransa atahagobaka Lefèvre ntiyigeze yemera kurangazwa n’abamurwanyaga ngo bimubuze guhindura Bibiliya amaze guhindura Ibyanditswe by’ikigiriki (bakunze kwita Isezerano Rishya) kugira ngo abantu barusheho gusenga “bafite ibyiyumvo.” Lefèvre yiringiraga ko kiliziya izageraho ikareka imigenzo y’abantu Yumvaga ko buri Mukristo afite “uburenganzira n’inshingano byo gusoma Bibiliya no kuyiga ku giti cye Ni yo mpamvu yakoze uko ashoboye kugira ngo Bibiliya igere kuri bose Nubwo yifuzaga ko inyigisho za Kiliziya zivugururwa Icyakora yageze ku ntego ye yo gufasha rubanda rwa giseseka kumenya Ijambo ry’Imana ^ par. 21 Nyuma y’imyaka itanu yasohoye Bibiliya yahinduye ahereye ku ndimi z’umwimerere Igihe yahinduraga Ibyanditswe by’ikigiriki yabihinduye yifashishije Bibiliya yahinduwe na Lefèvre Martin Luther atarasuzuma ibitabo Lefèvre yanditse Luther wari ukiri muto yabonaga ko Lefèvre asobanura neza imirongo ya Bibiliya ntashyiremo inkuru z’impimbano nk’uko byari bimeze ku ntiti zo mu gihe cye Ibisobanuro Lefèvre yatangaga kuri Bibiliya byagiriye akamaro Luther n’abandi bahinduzi ba Bibiliya urugero nka William Tyndale na Jean Calvin yagize uruhare rukomeye mu guhindura Bibiliya kandi atuma habaho Ivugurura igomba kuba itandukanye n’ibindi bitabo byose nʼukuntu kuba yararokotse tukaba natwe tuyifite bigaragaza ko ari igitabo kidasanzwe Iyi Bibiliya ya kera igaragaza ko Bibiliya zo muri iki gihe zimwe na zimwe zirimo imirongo itaboneka mu mwandiko w’umwimerere Menya uko Bibiliya ya kera y’ikinyajeworujiya yavumbuwe Abanyeshuri bandukuraga Ibyanditswe ku mabuye bahuriye he n’abantu binjizaga Bibiliya rwihishwa muri Esipanye Earlier today it was reported that Al Jourgensen and Ministry were forced to cancel a show mid-set in Paris after Jourgensen was rushed to the hospital via ambulance the band's management has issued an official statement regarding the situation and Jourgensen's current condition The statement also includes a personal apology directly from Jourgensen to his fans Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen collapsed on-stage during the live Ministry performance and was rushed to hospital via ambulance where he was examined by numerous physicians and diagnosed to have had a full-system collapse due to extreme dehydration and heat exhaustion intensified by the lack of ventilation on stage at the venue Doctors confirm via blood tests conducted that Jourgensen’s alcohol blood levels were well below normal and no narcotics were found in his system Ministry has cancelled today’s appearance at the L’Etaples France Rock en Stock Festival in order to allow Mr Jourgensen a few days rest to recuperate and receive additional medical attention in Switzerland Jourgensen fully intends to complete the remaining shows on the Ministry DeFiBriLlaTouR European leg Jourgensen extends his most sincere apologies to his devoted Parisian fans who displayed so much love respect and concern for him before and after the Ministry show Says Jourgensen: “I will make it up to you sh-- happens and the sh-- hit the fan for me last night.” Following the cancelled L'Etaples France Rock en Stock Festival performance, the next date scheduled for Ministry is July 31 in Switzerland. Check out all the remaining Ministry tour dates here Many fans have taken to Ministry's Facebook page to share their get well messages with Jourgensen Loudwire would like to extend our best wishes to Al Jourgensen as well Earlier today it was reported that Al Jourgensen and Ministry were forced to cancel a show mid-set in Paris after Jourgensen was rushed to the hospital via ambulance Following the cancelled L'Etaples France Rock en Stock Festival performance, the next date scheduled for Ministry is July 31 in Switzerland. Check out all the remaining Ministry tour dates here Many fans have taken to Ministry's Facebook page to share their get well messages with Jourgensen own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment Manchester Metropolitan University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK View all partners Less than a fortnight later, the British press was reporting that two other military dogs, Dazz and Kevin, both veterans of successful tours of duty detecting IEDS in Afghanistan, were to be destroyed because it was thought too risky to re-home them it is becoming more and more evident that these incredibly brave animals need to be recognised as more than just tools of war In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) continental European soldiers began to realise that dogs offered potential solutions to the challenges of modern firepower on the battlefield As infantry formations became more dispersed on widely-extended battlefields locating the wounded became increasingly hard for stretcher-bearers – but not for “keen-scented” dogs Thousands of dogs served in these roles in World War I and As the technology of modern warfare became ever more deadly During World War II they were first deployed as mine detectors But what to do with the dogs once the fighting was over? In Germany and France, it was recognised, even before World War I had ended, that these intelligent and amenable animals of proven worth could continue to serve. Many remained in military service and others were re-trained as guide dogs for blinded soldiers or to pull the small carts used by veterans who had lost limbs The British attitude was very different. They, alone among the great powers, had rejected the use of dogs for military purposes before World War I, believing them temperamentally unsuited to the conditions of modern battlefields. But the success of French war dogs in action had convinced them of their mistake and they began to make use of them, from late 1916 onwards After the Armistice, that curious lack of faith in canine capabilities reasserted itself and the British war dogs were disposed of. Some were adopted by their former handlers and found their way home. One Airedale, called Mike lived a contented retirement in a Lyme Regis pub a pampered favourite of the patrons until his death in 1930 Most were not so fortunate. They were sold off in Cologne, where British occupation forces were based, in 1919 for about 20 marks each (approximately £9). The suggestion that the British might do as the French and Germans were doing and train at least some of their dogs to help disabled veterans was rejected. Guide dogs would not be trained in Britain until 1931 by which time most of the former military dogs had died This is a pretty shabby history for a country which boasts of being “a nation of dog lovers” – but it is not one we should be doomed to repeat Dazz and Kevin are highly trained in the role of sniffing out explosives so there can be little reason to assume they are incapable of adapting to a quieter life Experienced handlers have offered them homes: what better both for the dogs and for those around them “The flu went on and on like the war, thousands of life [sic] was soon ended. We that survived were still in action. … I was sent to the Embarkation Hospital at Sutton Veny, waiting for transport home. Along comes the dreaded killer again. Soon the Cemetery there was filled with the dead of the Civilians, Nurses, Soldiers. Again I came through that ordeal and fully aware of the symptoms and its vengeance.” Ernest R. Linklater, 3DRL/5098 As the First World War was drawing to a close and the monumental task of repatriating countless tired and homesick soldiers began the world faced a pandemic that would be more deadly than “the war to end all wars” Virologists believe that the likely origin of the Spanish Flu pandemic was in areas along the Western Front The pandemic then spread through large military camps such as those at Étaples in France and Aldershot in Britain in both the troop staging camp and the base hospitals created the perfect environment for the virus to spread rapidly by means of military personnel With the signing of the Armistice in November 1918 and these personnel began their journeys home Up to 170,000 Australian soldiers (and if they had wed in Britain their families) required transport back to Australia Major cities such as London filled with soldiers waiting to be returned to their homeland increasing both their risk of exposure to the disease and the likelihood of carrying it across the sea By March 1919 soldiers were receiving inoculations against influenza before their repatriation The image below shows an “inoculation parade” of Australian Army Medical Corps personnel in the Senior Medical Officer’s hut at the No Innoculation parade against influenza in the Senior Medical Officer's hut at the No 4 Command Depot AIF camp prior to repatriation Australia was proactive in its quarantining policies implementing a maritime quarantine in October 1918 after the government was informed of outbreaks in New Zealand and South Africa Many of the returning soldiers recorded their frustrations with the quarantine “If all goes well I am leaving here [Melbourne] tomorrow on the ‘Wyandara’ for Hobart. When we get there we have to do seven days isolation on Bruny Island & perhaps I won’t be able to write to you from there. If they give me half a chance I will bolt and not do the quarantine. I expect they will land us on Bruny though and not give us a chance to escape.” (PR01249) Despite the precautions cases of Spanish Flu began to appear in Australia in early 1919 the pandemic caused more deaths when people were kept in close proximity without adequate medical care as they were ill-equipped to deal with a large number of simultaneous cases As the number of deaths on the ship increased the names of those lost to the pandemic were written in the ship’s Orderly Room The death of one German internee in particular seems to have stuck with the crew: “’A Hun’ you say But the same feeble breath that is in my nostrils So much for one of the victims of Pneumonic Influenza.” Funeral of German deportee Johanne Petersen on board Her Majesty's Transport Kursk the pandemic killed an estimated 17 to 100 million people: as many as five times the number of people killed during the First World War Australia experienced one of the lowest recorded death rates of any country during the pandemic Extensive quarantining procedures were successful in slowing the spread of the disease into Australia By the time the pandemic arrived in the country it was in its “third wave” which proved to be significantly less severe than the preceding wave It is well to remember in our current pandemic that one hundred years ago the quarantine When Hilda Rix Nicholas’s husband was killed during the First World War creating some of the most powerful and deeply personal works of her career these works are a poignant reminder of the sacrifice and loss of the First World War she was the second child of Henry Finch Rix a musician and artist who had attended the National Gallery of Victoria School alongside Arthur Streeton Hilda also attended the school and was taught by McCubbin Hilda Rix Nicholas painted this A mother of France in Étaples during the First World War Hilda left Australia for Europe in 1907 with her mother and older sister Elsie she was living and working as an artist in France  She spent the last few days of peace at an artist’s colony in Étaples where she had spent many happy summers The family was evacuated to England after the declaration of war crammed aboard one of the last ships to leave France Hilda’s sister also became dangerously ill When Elsie died from enteric fever on 2 September 1914 Hilda could not bring herself to tell her mother Hilda withheld the news of her sister’s death for three months “I could scarcely put one foot in front of the other and walked like an old thing,” she later recalled Studio portrait of Second Lieutenant (later Major) George Matson Nicholas she met and married Major George Matson Nicholas DSO who had been based at an army camp at Étaples he saw some of the paintings Hilda had left behind in her abandoned studio and tracked her down before calling to see her at her London studio Matson had been wounded on Gallipoli and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his actions during a daring daylight attack on a German machine-gun post at Pozières He received the award at Buckingham Palace three days before their wedding Hilda was 32-years-old at the time and was looking forward to children family life and a home of her own once the war was over Matson returned to the front three days after they were married Hilda captured his smile and warmth in a beautiful sketch that she would treasure for the rest of her life Hilda Rix with Major George Matson Nicholas leaving Buckingham Palace Only one of her letters to Matson has survived it was sent to the front in a photograph wallet containing a picture of Hilda taken earlier in the year Your letter with news that you have gone back to the Battalion has come and frightens me be brave and splendid and always your best  but don’t be wreckless He was killed in action at Flers on 14 November 1916 Studio portrait of Lieutenant Byron Fitzgerald Nicholas Byron was killed in action during the attack on Daisy Wood Hilda took comfort in her friendship with Matson’s brothers – Byron Frank and Athol – but they too were serving and had to return to the front Byron would be killed in action the following year in Belgium Inspired by her own grief and her experiences as a war widow Hilda would go on to create a body of work that was a deeply personal statement about grief and loss an art curator at the Australian War Memorial said her war time work continues to resonate with people today “Hilda Rix Nicholas had this amazing creativity and drive to be an artist,” Torrens said “By the time the war broke out she was well on her way to being a recognised artist: she had studied in London and in France the French government had bought some of her work and she had set up a studio for herself in Etaples… so the war did completely devastate her life “She and Matson had this whirlwind romance and she was absolutely heartbroken…She had lost her sister and then this wonderful man within a period of about two years “She’s very alone and really turned to her artwork as a way to express her grief and find some kind of solace This drawing is a study for the central panel of the triptych Pro Humanitate (1917) one of three major oil paintings completed by Rix Nicholas in the years directly following the death of her husband The original painting was destroyed by fire in 1930 Offered to the Memorial by the artist in 1922 the triptych was rejected for being too personal for a public institution by the Memorials’ Art Committee they were willing to accept the central panel if it was sufficiently accurate from a historical point of view Rix Nicholas refused to break up the triptych She defended it by saying it was national in spirit – not a representation of her marriage “Several paintings that we know of that she did at this period are very personal expressions of that grief: a widow weeping on the battlefield sitting among the war-damaged landscape; and a triptych which she called Pro Humanitate inspired by the poetry of Rupert Brooks … “The central panel was showing her husband from behind at the moment he was shot on the battlefield and the third panel was the life that they would have had together with children and family … She was mourning his death is a portrait of a neighbour whose son had been killed in one of the first battles of war The painting quickly became a symbol of the suffering of all mothers who had lost sons at war Hilda started a series of portraits of Australian diggers She began by portraying her late husband and his brothers but the series grew into a larger project when she returned to Australia in 1918 and began exhibiting her work in Sydney in Melbourne Hilda Rix Nicholas drew this portrait of her new husband two days after their wedding on 9 October 1916 Bryon Fitzgerald Nicholas enlisted at the same time as his older brother George Matson Nicholas He left Australia as a trooper with the 13th Light Horse Regiment and also saw service on Gallipoli By 1916 he had been transferred into the 24th Battalion and fought on the Western Front alongside his brother Bryon was awarded the Military Cross at Bapaume in April 1917 and promoted to Lieutenant Stephen Francis Nicholas worked as a journalist prior to enlisting in 1916 along with his younger brother Athol The brothers came out from Australia with 16th reinforcements attached to the 22nd Battalion on the "Nestor" Frank was transferred into the 24th Battalion in France and suffered shellshock He was invalided out in early 1918 and returned to Australia with Rix Nicholas Athol was the youngest of the four Nicholas brothers to serve He enlisted at 18 and travelled to France as part of the 16th Reinforcements and was attached to the 22nd Battalion A medical student prior to his enlistment he had been awarded a Government exhibition place which he turned down to join his brothers in military service He was sent back to Australia in February 1917 to complete his medical studies she took a studio in the Sydney suburb of Mossman and began sketching drawings of soldiers who had returned from the war and were yet to find employment “It’s quite a moving series,” Torrens said “She really wanted to honour the memory of her husband and his brothers but also of the Australian soldiers more broadly …” Hilda painted soldiers with what she felt was a sense of quiet dignity: “All the soldiers who have seen [my paintings] say they would have thought only a digger could have painted it because I have the absolute spirit of the men ‘on the field’” “Hilda’s public memorialisation project culminated in 1921 when she entered the Australian war memorial competition at the State Library of Victoria,” Torrens said “It was a big mural competition and although her works were really strong and received favourable comments from the committee and in the press and instead [the official war artist] Septimus Power won that commission Rix Nicholas chose a returned serviceman as the model for 'A man' in 1921 “The response [to Hilda’s war time] work was lukewarm from the establishment and even though her work was coming out of a unique and true experience there was a sense that only people who had first-hand experience of the battlefield “She also offered her wartime works to the Memorial in the 1920s but she was told they were too personal – too intimate – for a national collection but they wanted to split the work up and only take the central panel which shows a soldier – who’s been shot – in an almost Christ-like pose from behind as he’s falling backwards and defended it by saying it was national in spirit.” appreciated her recognition of their service and sacrifice “Her work really appealed to the men who had come back from the war and she received a lot of support from quite high-ranking officers,” Torrens said “She captured the Australian soldiers’ experience with a quiet dignity and it keyed into their memories and their experience … They recognised that she was capturing something in those works that expressed elements of their experiences and their values and it really resonated with them.” Three quarter length portrait of a First World War soldier in charcoal and coloured pastel Hilda Rix Nicholas married pastoralist Edgar Wright in 1928 and moved to live at his property 'Knockalong' at Tombong close to Delegate She lived and worked there until her death in 1961 It is believed that this drawing was presented to the Bombala RSL in the late 1920s The artist has a strong connection to the Monaro District and also made portraits of local soldiers and airmen during the Second World War and a number of portraits from the series that began with her sketches of Matson and his brothers are part of the national collection Pro Humanitate was destroyed in a bushfire in 1930 “They are the only known portraits of identified Australian soldiers by a female artist that exist as far as I know … Australia didn’t appoint a female official war artist until the Second World War so they are a counterpoint to the formal military portraits that were produced by the male war artists as part of the official war art scheme … and that’s where the significance of this work is “She’s the only Australian artist to have portrayed these images of war and grief in the same body of work … and ironically it these deeply personal works that resonate with people today It was a focus of her practise from 1916 … until about 1922 and it was some of the best work that she did.” Rix Nicholas returned to Australia in 1918 and took a studio in Mosman in 1919 She made drawings of soldiers who had returned from the war and were yet to find employment The men who modelled for 'In France' were among these This portrait is thought to be of Private Thomas Henry Herket who enlisted in Sydney on 10 August 1915 He was wounded and taken prisoner of war at Fleur Baix and interned in a German POW camp at Festings – Lazaretti Herket underwent 10 operations on his wounded right ankle during his captivity Following the war Herket worked as an accountant on several NSW pastoral properties before applying for work in 1939 with the Department of Treasury as an Agriculture agent for the Australian Government in New Guinea Herket was one of more than 200 civilians killed in 1942 when the Montevideo Maru was torpedoed off the coast of the Philippines Hilda returned to France in 1925 and became the first Australian female artist to hold a solo exhibition in Paris his grandfather had been one of the original owners of Lanyon Hilda went to live with Edgar at the family property the year in which her new studio was built still lives at Knockalong and has kept the studio largely as it was “I was only five or six when my grandmother died,” she said “But I remember her up in her bed and in her garden with all her flowers My father would go down the hill on the property to milk the cow and drop me off in my grandmother’s bedroom…and she’d put out her pencils I later discovered that they were juniper pencils and I still remember that smell of the pencils… and it appears they were very happy together but she was madly in love with George Matson Nicholas and she was absolutely devastated when he died Not titled [Seated solider wearing helmut] c.1920 Seated three quarter length portrait of a soldier in black charcoal and coloured pastel “She was head over heels in love… and she was very affected [by the war] “In returning to Australia and settling down at Knockalong … she was on the land and that was a huge healing process for her but they were often young men on horses who were also returned soldiers from the local area … she had moved to Knockalong and that was her arcadia… “She was very caught up in the war … and she stuck to her guns “The war was still very much with her … She was still painting and drawing images of soldiers and she was honouring what they fought for She was honouring them as individuals and honouring what they had gone through.” Hilda kept the portraits of Matson and his brothers for the rest of her life and now as a nation we have an amazing collection of drawings and paintings,” Wright said “It was coming from the heart and her experience.” This colour portrait was drawn by Rix Nicholas on 24 September 1917 at Hindhead This village in Surrey is located south west of Guildford and was where Hilda had spent her honeymoon with Matson Nicholas almost a year earlier As the production designer my job on The Crimson Field was to design the set: choosing the ideal location designing all the different areas and selecting the style and decoration I researched historical photographs and paintings found from the Imperial War Museum archives which was important early on as they communicated the atmosphere and look of the production I presented my design ideas to the producers in the form of mood boards My whole team then worked closely together to achieve the ambition of the production Early base camp layout plans: the pharmacy set across the square from the quartermaster's store I drew a 3D sketch of the whole site to bring it to life My pharmacy design sketch detailing how the interior of the pharmacy would look The construction of the pharmacy took three weeks The dressing plan detailed the location of the large furniture in the pharmacy Ready for filming: it took a week to fully stock the pharmacy with medical props Marianne Oldham as Rosalie Berwick in the pharmacy During my research, I noticed from photos of military hospital at Étaples that all the tents had been adapted to make them practical for hospital use Entrances and exits had been cut into the canvas wherever necessary storage areas and practical shelving added in So I joined three tents together to make a large L-shaped ward tent and imagined that the connecting corridors were storage areas and nurses stations I planned the nurses' station to be connected to Ward 1 through a series of corridors My colour illustrations helped visualise the interior look and feel before construction Oona Chaplin as Kitty Trevelyan on set in the ward This scaled drawing showed what the quartermasters store would look like from all sides An old photograph inspired this rock feature and all of the stone was appropriated nearby The quartermasters store set dressed with props and ready for filming Captain Miles Hesketh-Thorne (Alex Wyndham) visits the quartermaster (Jeremy Swift) Cristina Casali is the production designer for The Crimson Field The Crimson Field continues on Sunday, 13 April at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC Stay updated with the latest posts from the blog Russell Kane: I'd be a rubbish Bear Grylls Meet the actresses behind Leanne and Rhona Jasmin thinks her complications are bad karma Mary Beard's stories from behind the scenes Get outta my pub! Stars try out her famous phrase It's fun playing a character in his own revenge film Matt the elephant made it clear he's to be respected Watch exclusive deleted scenes Exploring an unlikely sort of World War II hero Actress Jodie Comer on the mystery of Ivy All Salma wants is to protect the people she loves Mared's red coat needs its own Twitter account Play Duration: 53 minutes 21 seconds53m Brought to you by Hilda Rix Nicholas, Moongalba by Kyra Mancktelow and NATSIAA emerging artist winner Kyra Mancktelow.(Hilda Rix Nicholas; supplied: Kyra Mancktelow.) Published: 23 Apr 2025Wed 23 Apr 2025 at 12:00am Published: 16 Apr 2025Wed 16 Apr 2025 at 12:00am Published: 9 Apr 2025Wed 9 Apr 2025 at 12:00am Download the ABC listen app to hear more of your favourite podcasts the only thing on your mind is going to the beach discover the most relaxing beaches within reach of the train Take a trip to the sea with your friends and family Twelve kilometres of fine sandsurrounded by colourful cabins and wild dunes. Welcome to Le Touquet hop on an electric shuttle bus for 1€: the beach is only 10 minutes away. After a peaceful rest a large range of activities awaits you to discover the area: guided tours (offbeat bike or Segway rides, shopping in Rue Saint-Jean You can also sleep at Le Touquet’s iconic hotel: The Westminster It is the ideal destination for an enchanted break: entirely out of touch with time Don’t forget to taste the  local speciality: the ratte du Touquet This mouth-watering potato dish is on many restaurants’ menus You can also find it at the market (rue Jean Monnet) on Thursday and Saturday mornings Saint-Malo is an ideal destination to relax in the open air thanks to its beaches It is a 20-minute walk from the station to the beaches Did you know the Sillon beach was voted “most beautiful French beach” on Tripadvisor At the bottom of the ramparts, the Éventail beach also makes quite an impression: the view ofthe Fort Nationalis unbeatable A trip to this iconic monument is a must: it was built in 1689 by the architect Vauban to protect the city The traditionalBreton crepesawait you in any restaurant >> Book your train tickets for Saint-Malo Accessible by car in 20 minutes from Morlaix station or by TER from Roscoff station,Saint-Pol-de-Léonis a charming seaside resortbetween Roscoff and the Carantec peninsula. Less touristic and busy than the surrounding beaches it attracts travellers searching forauthenticity andwild beaches Head to Saint-Anne for an afternoon of walking and relaxation. A strip of land will take you totheislet directly ahead. It’s magnificent Another hidden gem: the artichokes. Saint-Pol has even made this its speciality After a good night's sleep at the Hotel de France The journey by TER from Morlaix offers 47 minutes of breathtaking views of the English Channel >> Book your train tickets for Morlaix a vast stretch of sand popular with families located between the port and the Pointe des Minimes It is the biggest of the three beaches ofLa Rochelle The people of La Rochelle and visitors enjoy coming here to practice water sports: kayaking you can also find a beach volleyball court there is a superb view of the Phare du Bout du Monde Fort Boyard and the islands of Ré and Oléron a path will lead you along the coastline to discover You can get there with two bus lines (Illico 3 and 4) from the SNCF station which will drop you off near Minimes beach You can also access the beach by taking the Sea Bus which leaves from the Old Port: it’s a unique and fun way to get around La Rochelle >> Your train tickets to La Rochelle If you enjoy discovering splendid panoramic landscapes from the comfort of your seat in a TER (regional train), hop on the one that runs from Marseille to Miramas It covers 32 km of creeks bathed in turquoise water, viaducts and tunnels...And on top of this >> Book your train tickets to Marseille Written by: Official French mayors and military personnel in attendance WEST INDIAN Armed Forces Personnel who lost their lives serving in France during World Wars I and II Le Touquet in Northern France on the 1st of October 2022 The Royal British Legion are sponsoring the visit headed by National Windrush Museum Army Veteran board members Sue Liburd and Zac Robinson and Paul Chambers Chair of the British West India Regiments Heritage Trust (BWIRHT) accompanied by 35 others for the trip across the channel at the military cemetery are clustered in rows 37a from the British West India Regiment (BWIR) Eight (8) of the men laid in rest are Jamaicans and one (1) St Lucian and one (1) Bahamian These graves stand as a permanent and emblematic reminder of the thousands of men who travelled from the West Indies to fight for our freedom and never returned.  Paul believes that “The Ceremony will help connect the memory of those who lost their lives to the legacy of current and future generations.” Sue Liburd will remind the invited audience comprising French dignitaries that “Commemorations like these will serve to remind us that thousands of men and women from the Caribbean fought in WWI and against Hitler in WWII.” Zac Robinson shares that he considers “It will be an honour and a privilege to carry the Windrush Standard in tribute and memory to those that made the ultimate sacrifice.” The Wreath laying has been dubbed ‘Cumbayah’ ‘Come by here’ as an occasion for the Armed Forces Community in particular and for Windrush descendants in general to say honour you and thank you for your sacrifices that have given us the freedoms we have today” By shining a spotlight on the resting places of these West Indians this visit seeks to remember and connect the individuals we commemorate with current and future generations Many families and decedents still tell stories of their loved ones who died in the Great Wars but for whom their resting place is unknown and they speak of those who survived only to face extreme racism when arriving in the UK to support the rebuild of Britain The National Windrush Museum is an organisation in Britain dedicated to researching promoting and preserving tangible and intangible cultural heritage lived experiences of Windrush pioneers [email protected] www.nationalwindrushmuseum.com Despite their ultimate sacrifice for the English Monarch and people of England during the First and Second European wars skin-colour prejudice; segregation and racism prevented Africans and West Indians from joining their Caucasian-heritage military colleagues at the Royal British Legion’s annual Remembrance at the Cenotaph Enormous petitioning and campaigning from the Chairman West Indian Ex-servicemen Association was necessary before the Royal British Legion’s colour-bar that prohibited the West Indian veterans from standing to attention at the annual National Remembrance Celebration at the Cenotaph; with the Monarch and senior Parliamentarians in attendance It is difficult and hurts deeply acknowledging that the “colour-bar” against African and West Indian Soldiers was upheld by the Royal British Legion; with Her Majesty as the patron of the Royal British Legion and without any significant objections from England’s political class or public institutions Reply Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" The Voice Newspaper is committed to celebrating black excellence campaigning for positive change and informing the black community on important issues Your financial contributions are essential to protect the future of the publication as we strive to help raise the profile of the black 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All rights reserved. New technology is helping highlight the little-known contribution and sacrifice of women during the Great War. More than 650 women who died during the war are commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission worldwide, and the organisation is using its new information panels to highlight some of the stories of those who gave their lives. The commission’s 100th information panel, installed at Etaples Military Cemetery in France, reveals the stories of two female casualties of World War I – Nursing Sister Dorothea Crewdson and YMCA volunteer Bertha ‘Betty’ Stevenson. During the war, the area around the small fishing port of Etaples – known to many British soldiers as ‘Eat Apples’ – became the largest British military base in the world, home to army training and reinforcement camps as well as hospitals. Started in May 1915, Etaples Military Cemetery is now the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in France with almost 11,000 Commonwealth burials. The cemetery’s new visitor information panel reveals the stories of both Nursing Sister Crewdson and YMCA volunteer Stevenson. Dorothea Crewdson served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment Nurse and was transferred to Etaples in 1915. In the summer of 1918 Etaples was attacked by German aircraft, leaving Sister Crewdson injured. She refused treatment so she could continue to care for her patients, earning her the Military Medal, but died in 1919 after contracting peritonitis. In April 1917, Betty Stevenson was posted to Etaples as a YMCA driver, responsible for transporting relatives from England visiting the wounded in hospital, and was killed by an air raid in 1918 while helping French refugees. She was given a military funeral and was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre avec Palme, for courage and devotion to duty. Both women’s stories are featured through the QR Code (Quick Response Code) included on the commission’s information panel. The QR code on the panel at Etaples also details the links between the site and some of the important literary figures of the war, including poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, and novelists C.S. Lewis and Vera Brittain. Owen and Sassoon were both based at Etaples for periods of the war and refer to life at the camps in their correspondence and work. C.S. Lewis, perhaps best known for the children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia, was wounded in April 1918 and treated in hospital at Etaples before returning to the UK. To view comments, please register for free or log in to your account. Play Duration: 54 minutes 8 seconds54m Brought to you by The survey show includes more than 250 artworks from painters who loom large in Australian art history — such as Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts — as well as those whose backstories are only just being written into the canon Join She-Oak curator and art historian Anne Gray and the University of Adelaide's Professor Catherine Speck to rediscover Rae and understand why she was left out of the history books Purchased with funds donated by Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family and Norma Atwell Bequest, 2020 Maria Fernanda Cardoso with Eucalyptus Gumnuts Spheres, 2021.…Sullivan + Strumpf We use some essential cookies to make this website work We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK remember your settings and improve government services We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services You have accepted additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time You have rejected additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time. News stories, speeches, letters and notices Data, Freedom of Information releases and corporate reports The services, which were organised by the MOD’s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC), also known as the ‘MOD War Detectives’, were held at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s (CWGC) Etaples Military Cemetery on the northern French coast and at Raperie British Cemetery near Soissons, on 5 and 6 September respectively. Both 2ndLt Boyd and Pte Little paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country, but their graves were lost in the fog of war. It has been an honour to play a part in rectifying this and to work with The Royal Regiment of Scotland to organise their rededication services. It is just as important today that men such as 2ndLt Boyd and Pte Little are not forgotten and fitting that their memory is still honoured by their regimental family. Lieutenant Harry Eaton lays a wreath at the grave of Second Lieutenant Boyd (Crown Copyright) The rededication services were conducted by the Reverend Tim Clarke-Wood CF, Chaplain to 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland and attended by serving soldiers of the battalion. The grave of 2ndLt Boyd was found after a researcher provided the CWGC with evidence suggesting that his grave could be identified. Further research conducted by the National Army Museum and JCCC confirmed their findings and similarly, it was CWGC who identified the grave of Pte Little in a separate investigation, again verified by the JCCC. 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland at the graveside (Crown Copyright) The headstones over their graves have been replaced with named inscriptions by the CWGC. CWGC Director for France, Xavier Puppinck, said: It is a special duty of ours to welcome people to our cemeteries, and to be able to mark the sacrifice of these two brave soldiers with a new headstone more than a century after they fell, is an honour. These services of rededication give us an opportunity to renew our commitment to care for their graves, and those of their comrades, forever. Don’t include personal or financial information like your National Insurance number or credit card details. Tommo and Charlie take part in the night patrol to capture a German prisoner Tommo regrets falling asleep and the precious lost time He finds himself singing ‘Oranges and lemons’ like Big Joe to stay awake… Tommo recalls leaving Etaples to move up to the front line The soldiers begin to see the evidence of war for the first time: shattered villages is kind and considerate and treats the men well At a final night in the local pub Tommo meets Anna - the daughter of the proprietor - and she reminds him of home and Molly The next night they march to the trenches seeing soldiers returning the other way Together Charlie and Tommo are on sentry duty and are disappointed to not see any enemy Tommo recounts patrols in no-man’s-land and their mission in to enemy trenches to capture a prisoner The Captain - ‘Wilkie’ - is shot and carried by Charlie to safety Later Tommo and Charlie go to visit Wilkie in hospital but discover he has been sent back to Britain to recuperate He has left his gold wrist watch for Charlie as a gift for saving his life See the Teacher's Notes below for guidance on using the content Download Teacher's Notes (pdf) documentDownload Teacher's Notes (pdf) Tommo's recollection focuses on his military training alongside Charlie life under Sergeant 'Horrible' Hanley and punishment for insubordination Private Peaceful – Episode 10 Tommy thinks back to the second time he went to the front line at 'Wipers' (Ypres) Charlie is wounded and is delighted at the prospect of going home to recover Private Peaceful – Episode 11 Tommo survives a gas attack and later a letter from home brings news of the new baby Tommo looks for Anna but discovers that she has been killed School Radio > English > Private Peaceful Copyright © 2025 BBC. 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A thoughtful Tommo recalls the early days of his military training...and how Charlie is punished for insubordination He thinks back to his army training and the bullying he and Charlie sustained at the hands of Sergeant ‘Horrible’ Hanley Tommo recounts the process of joining-up: the uniforms that don’t fit He sees many of the lads he grew up with at home Their training at Salisbury Plain is full of marching As they train with rifles they hear guns sounding from over in France and are afraid Tommo and Charlie suffer seasickness on the journey to France and are met by scenes of the injured on the quayside when they arrive At Etaples they meet Sergeant ‘Horrible’ Hanley who targets both boys When Hanley realises Tommo is underage he bullies him Charlie challenges Hanley and is arrested for insubordination He is given 'Field Punishment Number 1' by the Brigadier who warns him that ultimately insubordination is punishable by death Charlie is lashed to a gun wheel as the others march past Tommo thinks of him as Jesus on the cross and sings a hymn to himself as he marches Clip: 'You're a blot on creation!' - Charlie is punished for insubordination Tommo recalls how Molly comes to stay with the family and how in the nearby town of Hatherleigh he sees the army recruiting for volunteers Private Peaceful – Episode 9 Tommo recalls how Charlie and he are posted to the front line trenches Once at the Front the brothers are part of a night patrol sent to capture a German prisoner A letter from a Canadian soldier written on this day 105 years ago to his father provides a glimpse of life in the face of danger one that would ultimately end in tragedy due to events on the battlefield is written by John Filman who was in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Transit Camp in West Sandling Filman first enlisted with the 36th Battalion and later was with the 1st Canadian Divisional Signal Company Military records show that he was born in Aldershot but the exact date and his age remain vague Filman reports on the mundane occurrences of those camped out in England as he discusses the coming and goings of other soldiers as well as his own desire to join in the combat “I am back to camp again but it seems quite different here as all the boys are away at the front and we are in huts here instead of being in tents and it is a change for the better It appears Private Filman is laid up because of an ankle injury as he writes that it is swollen and he bathes it in hot water every hour and that he doesn’t do much else as he waits for it to heal with hopes to get back on his feet He also provides insight into the conflict as he writes: “This is going to be some war both Bulgaria and Greece are into it now and it looks like Romania is coming in to.” After earlier gently admonishing his father for taking some time to send a letter from home “Well I thinks this will be all for this time a result of shrapnel wounds to his arm and leg which led to blood poisoning His injuries occurred during the Battle of the Somme More than three million men fought in the battle and one million men were wounded or killed making it one of the deadliest battles in human history France and is remembered locally on a family monument at Greenwood Cemetery in Burlington Subscribe to INsauga – Ontario Headline News’ daily email newsletter for a chance to win a $100 gift card to Toronto Eaton Centre OR Sherway Gardens Get news delivered straight to your inbox.