Dear Laurel,
There are over half a million commonwealth graves in France alone. Hundreds
of Sinclair's among them. When you travel up through the Somme, front
lines,
there are so many Memorial sites sprawled across the fields on Farms and
beside the motorways that it leaves you feeling ill. They now plant sugar
beet crops in the blooded soils of the fallen. Each row upon row of head
stones have thin gardens in front with roses and other varieties of
flowers,
all beautifully trimmed and kept. The lawns are immaculately rolled and cut
and edgings cut perfectly. The sites are better kept than the average town
park. One small Memorial site that we visited had only about 35 graves and
there was no book to look up the names so I looked at all of them to see if
there were any Sinclair's there. All 35 were simply stamped "A Fallen
Soldier". They were someone's Son's, but who's, we will never know.
Many of the towns in the areas have cafes and bars with war memorabilia and
photo's lining the walls.The town of Ovillers remembers the Aussies with
shop display dummies in full Australian military uniforms in the streets
and
a shop full of large B&W photo's of the boys. One Photo saddened me of 6
Aussie men holding a large rough tin sign across them, which read " We want
our Mum's"
I could send you some photo's of Memorial sites if you would like them.
They
are very impressive.
Annie
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