By Morag Smith-Jones
Summer 2010 is nearly over. Autumn begins mid- August despite what you might think. (June 21st is midsummer, so do the maths). I am left to reflect on the multitude of ceremonies I have attended (and those I decided not to attend) in the Somme.
I felt very disheartened this year and extremely let down.
I watched lines of British, Australian, American etc.... tourists carrying their poppy wreaths to different ceremonies, so clearly moved by what they were doing and by whom they were remembering. They lined up and waited their turn to pay their respects to a lost relative, a local regiment or a friend's friend.
Yes, they waited their turn, having travelled long distances to get here, they waited oh so patiently.
They had to wait because they are not important in the eyes of the French authorities. They are not as important as the French officials who don their number one suit for the occasion (they might be photographed by the local paper after all). They had to wait because the local dignitaries had made it clear at meetings and in emails that French protocol MUST prevail on French soil.
Ah, but hang on a minute. Most of the ceremonies are not on French soil. They are on memorial land donated to the allied powers who helped French soil to remain French soil. If you take the example of the Lochnagar Crater in La Boisselle; this is private land owned by Richard Dunning. By rights, he can do exactly what he wants - bar break the law of course.
I am weary of learning that the organisers of ceremonies are being made to ensure that Monsieur X and Madame Y be the first to lay their wreaths, when in fact Monsieur X and Madame Y have only a fleeting knowledge of why the ceremony is taking place and don't even understand what the battle was all about and which regiments were involved. This lack of understanding and input contrasts greatly with the attitude of the patient tourists, holding their poppy wreaths, waiting to be allowed to go forward and pay their respects.
I am also weary of seeing these often elderly poppy wreath-holders struggling to walk from their designated parking plot (miles from the monument) whereas Monsieur X, a very trim and sporty mayor of Gobbledygook-sur-Somme, has the right to whizz through the crowds and park right next to the monument.
Until a more reasoned, dignified and egalitarian approach is insisted upon by the ceremony organisers... I will be doing it my way, very quietly away from the crowds, in a place filled with a sense of history I can savour ALONE.
