June 2022 - Long Days, 2 Wheels Return to fifty6, Friendships Made, Work Done
Posted on 30th June 2022 by Julie and David Thomson in General News.
June - Flaming June at times, other times stormy and showery, the weather has kept us on our toes this month – that ,along with all the other things keeping us busy but happy at No.fifty6.
After a very dry Spring we have at last had some rain – some heavy showers and storms which light the night sky as well as hot days. With a record 37 degrees in mid-June when all we could do was search the shade.
Generally though, it is still drier than normal and the tracks and roadways of the Somme remain dry and dusty. The rain has however let the crops that bedeck all the fields flourish and green of various hues blankets the land – potatoes in flower, maize growing, wheat nearly ready for harvesting - that cycle of agriculture continuing.
As we write this month’s newsletter we think, as always, of the soldiers who would be in the trenches, under the artillery bombardment which continued in the week leading up to 1 July 1916. How did they stand the noise, the vibration, the fear, the waiting….? One remarkable man who captured the mood of the solders so well was Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy – an army chaplain who was held in great affection by the men – earning the name Woodbine Willie as he would dish out cigarettes and pastoral care to the men. He wrote much poetry, using the language and slang of the men he moved among.
