Published by St Paul’s & Hampton Park Churches for the Tupsley Community Tupsley Community Newspaper
TupsleyVoice
Issue 55 Autumn 2014
Delivered FREE to over 4000 homes in Tupsley
Students laying a wreath at the Ledbury road war memorial
PUPILS SEEK THE WW1 FALLEN OF TUPSLEY
In July forty students at the Bishop of Hereford’s Bluecoat school visited the battlefields sites of Northern France and Belgium. During the trip the students were looking for twelve men from the Tupsley area who fell on the Western Front and are remembered on the War memorial on Ledbury Road and in St Paul’s Church. They located the graves and memorials to these men and used the National Archives crowdsourcing site www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org to record stories about these men in a digital archive. We had a wonderful time in Belgium. The students were an absolute credit to themselves and the school as we visited the Somme and Ypres over two very busy days.
On 1st July, on the 98th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, we started the day at Serre where students compared the British and French cemeteries. We then moved on to Beaumont Hammel where we walked past the Danger Tree and down to the German entrenchment at Y Ravine.
Students at Tyne Cot memorial Next we moved on to Thiepval, the memorial for those whose bodies were never found, where earlier in the day there had been ceremonies of remembrance. We finished the day by visiting the Loch Nagar crater, Delville Wood and a drive by of Guillemont, where another ceremony of remembrance was taking place.
On Wednesday 2nd July we visited the Ypres region, starting with Essex Farm, where we saw the grave of the poet, McCrae, and also of a 15 year old soldier called Strudwick. This was quite moving thinking he was just a few months older than most of our 40 students. We went on to Tynecot and Hill 62, where the students had the chance to experience the trenches. Finally we went to Langemark German Cemetery and Ypres Reservoir cemetery. In the evening students were surprised by how many people came to the Menin Gate for the daily act of remembrance. Back in Hereford on Friday 4th July in sessions led by the Humanities Team; Rhys Griffiths from Herefordshire Archives and a local Historian Susan Layton helped students to investigate the names on the Tupsley memorials and what Tupsley was like before the war, to help them appreciate what life the twelve Tupsley men (and the others) on the memorials had left behind. They inserted all their findings about these men in the digital archive www. livesofthefirstworldwar.org . In the afternoon the students walked down to the Ledbury Rd War Memorial, laid a wreath and then stood to reflect on where the men were killed and what their experiences might have been. A moving but enriching few days! Alan Banks | Head of the Humanities Faculty, The Bishop of Hereford’s Bluecoat School
David, Jacob & Kate next to the grave they found of Second Lieutenant Penry Jones at Tyne Cot Cemetery.
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