Vanishing Point: Devil’s Wood

Vanishing Point: Devil’s Wood

Vanishing Points

Oak is a feature of the English psyche, a fabled national wood if there is such a thing. It proliferates throughout our history from warships and traders building an Empire to the familiar furniture and ancient twisting house frames. The royal Oak subverted to shelter...
Vanishing Point: High Wood

Vanishing Point: High Wood

Vanishing Points

The way to start these things is difficult sometimes so here is a Piece of Mackintosh, not perhaps his best poem, but he can sum up the general situation in the area of High Wood better than I can. He knows what it was like because he was there in 1915 and wounded...
Vanishing Point: Fricourt New

Vanishing Point: Fricourt New

Vanishing Points

The best and the worst of it all are hidden over a brow. You won’t find the chattering crowds of the nexus points where death draws itself to a peak, this is not Thiepval or the Menin Gate. Nobody talks, no one sniggers, there is no rustle of frite wrapper when...
Vanishing Point: Mash Valley and Ovillers

Vanishing Point: Mash Valley and Ovillers

Vanishing Points

The Somme is exceptionally beautiful. For me a landscape which feels like home. It is chalk downland, when you get up onto the solitary heights of the Redan Ridge or the plateau where Thiepval sits it feels so similar to parts to the southern downlands. Below lies the...