Bugle call for pilgrims (From Worcester News)

Bugle call for pilgrims

10:24am Monday 14th November 2011 in Features By John Phillpott

THE pilgrims arrive from all points of the compass, huddled groups buttoned against the November chill.

Through the streets of this Belgian town swells a lava flow of people, all converging on the towering edifice crowned by a single stone lion.

Young and old, the fit and infirm, they slowly make their way to this sacred place. On every lapel is the blood-red splash of a Flanders poppy.

I’m here once again to pay homage to the generation that fought and died in these cursed lowlands during a war that is now beyond living memory.

For this pilgrim is caught up in a flood of humanity that has but one destination. The Menin Gate at Ypres.

Make no mistake. Wipers is more than a place. It is a bugle call.

The Menin Gate stands at the easterly entrance to Ypres. It is the spiritual heart of our tradition of remembrance and for good reason.

Over four long years, the British Army held on to the fingertip of land that was the Ypres Salient, defying Kaiser Wilhelm’s armies.

On the stonework are inscribed the names of 55,000 British soldiers whose bodies were never found or identified. The observer is left reeling from the sheer mass of lost souls.

There were four battles of Ypres, each one bloodier than its predecessor. By the end of the war, Ypres lay in ruins. It was bowed but unbeaten. For Ypres never fell.

Every soldier who fought here passed through the Menin Gate, then just a gap in the wall of 17th Century architect Vauban’s original defences.

One of these many thousands was my great-uncle, Captain Ernest Phillpott of Ist Battalion the Northamptonshire Regiment. And that is why I’m here… The service comes to an end and our party rejoins the coach. The engine bursts into life and it starts to thread its way slowly through the narrow streets of Ypres, past the departing crowds.

Soon, we are gliding across the billiard table fields of Flanders, heading for Calais, the ferry and home. But my eyes stay fixed on the receding spires of Ypres, as if reluctant to let her go.