Hello everyone and welcome to Beater Battlefield. This week, the 16th to the 24th of May 2026, Marks War Graves Week. This is a very special week in the life of the Commonwealth Wargraves Commission. All over the world, there are three events tasking and showing the different types of work that the Commonwealth War Graves do. Formerly the Imperial War Graves Commission, it was created in 1917 for something that was completely new in the history of warfare. Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, there had been no fought for the dead, but with the mass numbers of men dying during the First World War, it was seen fit that these men needed to be remembered. And all those years later, we're still doing a great job. So, in this series of episodes, I've picked some of my favourite cemeteries to go to, but we're going to do some of the different countries. The Commonwealth War Graves looks after 1.7 million graves around the world in over 150 countries at 2,500 purpose-built cemeteries. And in the UK alone, there's 170,000 Commonwealth Wargraves that you can find in every little churchyard and major cemetery. So I hope you enjoy. One question I quite get often asked, having been a Battlefield tour guide for nearly twenty odd years, is what is your favourite cemetery? This might sound a bit morbid, but when you wander around the Commonwealth War graves, you're always greeted with a slight peace when you walk amongst them. Each individual cemetery was designed after the war, and whether you go to Cabaret Rouge, located near Arras, and you stand there and it's designed in such a way, it's like a garden party. And you stand there at the Stone of Remembrance, and you're surrounded by all these on-looking graves, as if you're stood on that stage looking over a sea of Portland stone. And then, of course, you have those larger monuments which really do strike you. The twelve thousand men buried at Tynecott is always a site which, when I bring uh tours through there, today there's a large car park out the back of it, and that wasn't there twenty odd years ago. And we park up in the car park, and you go under that arch and you stood there, and you get a real shit sheer scale of it, and it's always quite emotional for any first-time traveller going to Tynecot to stand there and look over that sea of white in one of these silent cities. My favourite used to be Bedford House. That's located just outside the city of Eape, and that is made up of several different burials. It is one of those concentration cemeteries. There are, when it comes to Commonwealth Graves, there are different types of cemeteries. There are those battlefield cemeteries where the graves are not regimented. They may be split up into different areas, poking out in different directions, single graves or mass graves there. And after the First World War, any cemetery, which I believe I keep hearing different records for it, and sometimes you find cemeteries a bit small in this, but anything that was less than 40 to 60 graves would be amalgamated into these concentration cemeteries, but you do still find the odd burial, which is a little bit lighter. But Bedford House for me is like walking through an English country garden. It has these amazing structures and you promenade up this large long path towards the main First World War cemetery. Onto the left hand side you have a circular set of graves dedicated to those men who died on the Conwell's Canal in 1940 in that last offence before we hit the coast at the Battle of Dunkirk. And you wonder, and whatever time of year there, the foliage is always beautiful. In the height of summer, the vibrant colours just make you relax and forget, and I never feel bad when I'm in a semi in one of these cemeteries. They are places of rest and places of reflection. And you think of all these soldiers who are still there at rest, and it's one of those places that we always take scout groups through, because I I specialise in doing scout tours in the summer. And we go to the grave of Rupert Hallows, a scout leader from Port Talbot, who, not too far from Hoog in uh 1915, saw off the Germans there, and for his bravery he would earn his Victoria Cross. Of course he'd never receive it because it was posthumous, but he is a scout leader and does, as I'm still a scout leader today, and I always use him as a inspiration for young people that you know when the chips are down, as a good leader you lead your men by example, and that's what Rupert Hallows did. And every time we go there, we always get the kids to renew their promise in front of one of these scouting heroes. Many scouts earn the Victoria Cross, including Rupert Cornwall, who Jack Cornwall, sorry, not Jack Rupert, sorry, I've got a bit confused there. No, Jack Cornwall, who was one of the youngest Victoria Cross winners who earned it at Chutland, and he had been a scout prior to the outbreak of the First World War, and it shows that it's sheer bravery. And today, if any scout dies in the line of service in bravery, they are entitled to the Cornwall Award. And I've spent the best part of 30 years wandering across the battlefields, and there are those little cemeteries that you visit and stop off at. And I'd highly recommend if you ever get a chance getting a bicycle or walking the battlefield. This is that is the my bread and butter walking across those fields, and it's amazing as they sort of pop up. If you get on the maps, you can think, oh, I'll walk to this one today, and I'll go to that one. And every though every single cemetery is a beautiful individual cemetery which has its own little mark on that landscape. Those silent cities of the Great War, which 110 years later still stand proudly and are all looked after. There is a bit of controversy in Belgium and some many parts of Europe as they've started to not clean the graves. Well they have started cleaning them, but they've stopped using chemicals, and there is a an issue with stuff called black mould, which appears on some in some cemeteries but doesn't, and quite a lot of people get quite upset that they think the graves are not being tended to. But the commission has recently decided that they've got to be more environmentally friendly and obviously abide by those local rules and laws that they come under. So if you do see a set a grave that is damaged, please contact the Commonwealth War Graves. But the gardeners still do amazing work and they are working towards getting rid of this mould. And of course, sometimes when you visit these cemeteries in the winter, um sometimes the grass won't be cut or it won't be cut back as well as it should be. But they are still looked after and tended to. There are in Belgium alone 386 cemeteries, memorials, and burial grounds. That is a mammoth task on behalf of the Commonwealth War Graves, and they've done they are still doing sterling work over a hundred years later. The Commonwealth War Graves was an amazing idea and created in 1917, as prior to this there was no fort for the war dead. As I say, we have the battlefield cemeteries. You then have congregation cemeteries. These were burials that were brought in after the First World War. As I say, those tiny cemeteries, those battlefield ones that were too small to be tended to, and they'd be placed into larger cemeteries, and also you have concentration cemeteries, where today there are dedicated graves and sets for those who are found on the battlefield. And throughout the history, for over the past hundred years, there have been different dedicated cemeteries which sometimes could be hundreds of miles away from where the dead have been brought from. So if you go on the Commonwealth War Graves site today, you'll find the records of these concentrations, and you can actually look on Trench Mapper, which is a free website provided by the Western Front Association, and you can put in the map references, or even if you've got an old cemetery name, you can find out where that burial once was, you can see where these men have come from. And it's always a good tool to have if you are researching a soldier who died during the First World War, you can actually find out where they originally came from and perhaps add a bit more to their story. But I digress. Um just one other little thing. So if you go to London Extension Cemetery on the Somme near Highwood, that cemetery had hundreds of burials added to it in 1954, as many of those isolated burials couldn't be looked after. You've got to remember in the post-war post-second world war period, the country was very much, you know, we had to tighten our belts, and the Commonwealth Wargraves had such a mammoth task to do with so little that the burials were bought from those tiny little cemeteries and placed into those spots there. But the whole point of this actual podcast is me to tell you what my favourite cemetery is. As I said, it used to be Bedford House, but in recent years, during Covid, I uh I got I've done thousands of soldiers research over the years, and I never really got into my own family tree. It was something that I never really looked at until I managed to find my my granddad. He was a bit of a rogue, and he's a bit of the reason why I do what I do, and he escaped me this amazing interest in the First and Second World War. And he had been fostered during the well, we knew who his father was, we knew who his mother was, and um but they would have a couple of kids and then send them out to the workhouse and they wouldn't all come together. But I managed to find his records from 1939 and the town in which he came from in Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, and by looking at the surname I managed to locate more members of that family, and Ancestry.com is amazing if you've there are thousands of people, perhaps millions of people who've created their their family trees already, and you have to be really careful with the information you've got, but you can cross-link. So by the end of Covid, I'd found 16 relatives who had died during the First World War. And one of the cemeteries I'd always go to when you visit the battlefields, if you've ever staying in Eape, go to the Lil Rampart Cemetery next to the Lil Lil Gate on the Rose Combs Walk. And if you are interested in battlefield guiding or battlefield tour, taking a battlefield tour, please get Rose Coombs before Endeavors Fade. This book has been in print for nearly 50 odd years and it's had some changes over the years as the battlefields have changed. But that is your first book of battlefield tour guiding, and it will give you so much information and teach you a lot from top to bottom about those First World War battlefields. But Little Rampart Cemetery is located on, as it says, does what it says on the tin, it's on the ramparts, and it looks over the moat around Eape, this amazing fortified city. It's a battlefield cemetery. As men died in the town, they were buried in those plots, and we have several men from the Maoris, from the Pioneer Corps of New Zealand, who were all killed by one shell on that one night in at New Year's Eve 1917, and they're often visited and remembered. What we need to remember with people of First Nations of New Zealand is in their memory they don't like to see photographs of the dead, and we do respect that, but you quite often find at that particular set of graves you'll see the photographs of those six or seven men who were all killed together. And sadly the Maoris weren't treated as well, and with there is a period in our history which any First Nation persons weren't treated the best that we could have done. But of course it was a different time then and we work forward. And I'll always take groups to this cemetery because it's a small cemetery and we can talk about the history and the layout of Commonwealth War graves, but right on the front row, overlooking that lake, and if you get a chance, go to Pacific Island, there's a cafe on an island inside the moat. They do the Belgians are very literal with their things. Um and you can hire a hire a little rowing boat and you can row up to that cemetery and you get an amazing view of it. And it's always one of the first cemeteries you'll you're greeted with when you drive into the city of Yapon. When me and my dad are doing the tours and we drive under the Little Gate, we always tip our hats at that one particular cemetery because I found one of my my great uncles, or my granddad's side from my mum, Sidney Warman, who died in 1917 as part of the Wiltshire Regiment, and I must have walked past his grave hundreds and hundreds of times. And when I was working in Eap semi-full-time, I'd always go for a little walk on a nice summer's evening, sit there on the cross sacrifice, and reflect on the day's touring I'd had. So, for those who want to know the answer to that question that I asked I tried to answer 13 minutes ago, it's the Lil Rampart Cemetery, is my favourite. So this is all part of uh these these daily podcasts are in relation to the um this Commonwealth Wargraves Wargraves week this week. Please look on their website and you'll find information about events in your local area, but also please keep an eye on their websites, you will get so much information about events, reburials and rededications all over the Western Front. But this week the Commonwealth Wargraves are doing events all over the world, and that's what this series is about. It's about different War Graves in different countries. So please look after uh look after Commonwealth Wargraves. We pay two pounds a year as part of our tax money, but also you can pay into it via the Commonwealth Wargraves Foundation, which is the charitable branch of the Commonwealth Wargraves Commission, which is designed for outreach to try and carry on the memory of these brave men and women who have died for our country.