Evergreen
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32 EVERGREEN Autumn<br />
Pilgrimage to the Western Front<br />
Each year, a group of<br />
chaps from the villages of<br />
Leybourne and the Mallings<br />
in Kent enjoy a day trip by coach and<br />
ferry, visiting either northern France<br />
or Belgium. In their comfortable<br />
coach, the party (and I am one of<br />
those day-trippers) eagerly look<br />
forward to some sightseeing, wine<br />
tasting, a good lunch and certainly<br />
those excellent Belgian beers.<br />
There is a good spirit of<br />
camaraderie on this informal annual<br />
gathering, but the Leybourne and<br />
Malling lads have a serious purpose,<br />
too. During the course of the day<br />
they visit a place of interest, usually<br />
connected with the two world<br />
wars. A recent destination was the<br />
peaceful landscape of Passchendaele<br />
and Ypres. Peaceful, that is, to our<br />
generation, but a blasted nightmare<br />
of death and mud for the men who
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