Wales Remembers First World War Centenary At Grave Of Hedd Wyn

Only Boys ALoud sing 'Calon Lan' at the National Eisteddfod 2012

Last week I had the occasion to be in Belgium for a couple of days. Having completed the mission that we set out on, we found ourselves with about 24 hours to spare before our ferry departure on Monday evening, so decided to spend the night at a campsite in Ypres.

I have been past Ypres many times over the last few years, but was never able to visit due to lack of time and a full and rigid agenda. My great wish was to visit the Menen Gate for the last post, to pay my respects and witness the ceremony.

Although I have seen many photographs and reports from Ypres and the Menen Gate, I really did not know what to expect. I had always imagined the Gate to be in a cemetery, so was shocked to find ourselves driving through it on the way into the centre of Ypres!

Having found Tourist information, and, with the address of the local campsite programmed into the 'SatNav Sally', off we went to set up camp and get the dog fed and watered. 

The campsite is a 15 minute walk from the centre of town, and we were starving and thirsty after a hard day's travelling, so grabbed a pint and a meal before the ceremony. Having rushed the meal we headed off to the gate (having been told that the ceremony started at 8pm sharp)!

Just as we got there, the bugle began to intone its soulful lament, bringing goosebumps to the skin and shivers to the spine. 

Then the exhortation echoed through the arches:

THE EXHORTATION

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them

Response: We will remember them.

[2 MINUTES SILENCE]

When you go home tell them of us and say -

For your tomorrow we gave our today

Just as an aside, before I carry on, my mother's side of the family are Welsh, from the Conwy Valley in North Wales, and her eldest brother, David fought with the Chindits in Burma during the Second World War. There is a tradition on that side of the family to join the armed forces, a tradition still upheld within my Welsh family today. 

The reason that I give you this information is that, unbeknown to me, the ceremony was led by a Welsh contingent, with a Welsh Choir to the haunting strains of a Welsh Harp.

After Prayers and Hymns, and even though I was too far away to see any of the ceremony, my face was wet with tears as the Last Post echoed through the arches of the Menen Gate to disperse through the streets of Ypres.

While researching on Youtube, I found this version of the Welsh Hymn Gwahoddiad, that brought tears to my eyes in Ypres, as the voices of the Welsh Veterans mingled in harmony with the strains of the choir. Sung by Only Boys Aloud, the young Welsh Male Voice Choir at the National Eisteddfod in 2012.

Only Boys Aloud sing Gwahoddiad. National Eisteddfod 2012

I found the article below on the website for The Commonwealth Graves Commission, and believe this may be why so many Welsh Veterans were in Ypres when we visited. 

Wales Remembers First World War Centenary At Grave Of Hedd Wyn

14 August 2014

On Sunday, August 17 a service will be held at the grave of Welsh poet Private Ellis Humphrey Evans, known as Hedd Wyn, as part of a weekend of activities to commemorate the 40,000 Welshmen who died in the First World War.

Thousands of people are expected to travel from Wales to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Artillery Wood Cemetery in Flanders, Belgium to attend the service; which will feature a sixty-strong male voice choir, prayers, readings and the laying of wreaths.

The event at Artillery Wood is preceded on Saturday 16 August by the dedication of a new Welsh memorial at Langemark. The eight-foot tall bronze dragon, was sculpted at Wales' Castle Fine Arts Foundry in Powys, after £130,000 was raised by the public, over four years, through the Welsh Memorial in Flanders Campaign.

CWGC historian, Dr Glyn Prysor, said: "Like so many Welsh men and women, Ellis Evans left his home to serve in a war which at times defied imagination. Writing as Hedd Wyn, his poetry was among the most profound, moving and inspirational to emerge from the war. Artillery Wood Cemetery is a place of pilgrimage for those of us who come here to reflect on his life, and the lives of thousands of his countrymen who now lie in Commonwealth War Graves, or whose names are inscribed on Memorials to the Missing, across Flanders, Europe, and the world."

Ellis Evans came from a farming family in rural Gwynedd and enlisted in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in February 1917. On 31 July 1917, the first day of the Battle of Pilckem Ridge (part of the Third Battle of Ypres), he was hit by a piece of trench mortar shell near Langemark and died at a nearby aid post. He is buried at the CWGC Artillery Wood Cemetery in a plot close to fellow poet Francis Ledwidge.

Evans was largely self-educated and showed an early talent for poetry in the Welsh bardic tradition. He took the first of the six poetry chairs he would win in competition in 1907 and was awarded his bardic name Hedd Wyn ('blessed peace') in 1910. Soon after his departure on active service, he completed Yr Arwr (The Hero), his entry for the 1917 National Eisteddfod, for which he was posthumously awarded the poetry chair.

Source: http://www.cwgc.org/news-events/news/2014/8/wales-remembers-first-world-war-centenary-at-grave-of-hedd-wyn.aspx

Only Boys Aloud sing 'You Raise me Up'. National Eisteddfod 2012