INCESSANT rain has turned the fields of the Ypres Saliant into liquid mud, evoking all the images that always spring to mind whenever the First World War comes to mind.
It’s still raining as we cross the French border into Belgium and the coach arrives at Ploegsteert, just down the road from Messines.
The former can probably boast the most impressive cemetery of the Western Front, with its classical pillars and lions sentries.
This is just a grenade-throw from the field where the Christmas truce of 1914 took place. Captain Bruce Bairnsfather, of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who would later gain national fame as the creator of the Old Bill cartoons, took part in this historic event.
Not far from Ploegsteert – or ‘Plugstreet’ as it was known to the Tommies – is Bairnsfather’s pond, where he sat and sketched his characters. Originally from Warwickshire, after the war Bairnsfather lived variously in Littleton, Worcestershire, and just over the Herefordshire border in Ledbury. He died in 1959.
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