The Somme 100 years on

The public are invited to mark 100 years since the start of the Battle of the Somme.

So many people in the UK have a close link to the Somme. The Government and The Royal British Legion are working together to encourage communities across the country to mark the battle in their own way.  This can be through a vigil at sundown on 30 June or during 1 July, or with a Remembrance event on one of the 141 days that battle raged until 18 November.

The ambition is for villages, towns and cities across the UK to gather at a meaningful place or in their home, to light a candle, read a poem, listen to music, share a photo of a family member who fought at the Somme.

The vigils will mirror the apprehension 100 years ago as those in the trenches waited anxiously for the “zero hour” at 7:30am when they went over the top.

Alison Prince writes:
The battle of the Somme began on July 1st. Since my parents were in the thick of all that, I wrote a poem about it.

The Somme

Of his entire battalion,
only my father and one other man
survived the Somme.

When the next war came
I noticed how his hands shook
in the London blitz.

My mother had been nursing
in Flanders on the theatre squad
in that first war.

Helped amputate, dressed wounds
with saline – all they had – washed bandages
and re-rolled them.

She taught me to roll bandages,
and where to find the pulse within a wrist,
small skills like that.

It’s by good luck that I was born to them,
a soldier and a nurse who met
in No Man’s Land.
in No Man’s Land.