The Retreat from Mons

7th October 1914



7th October 1914

This is a short Twitter film Hilary Easter-Jones made about the shell fuse that plays such a big role in this episode

Ever wondered what sparks writers off? This is not a very good picture of a quotation on a board that immediately intrigued Michael Chaplin and I when we saw it in the Newcastle Discovery Museum.

I chased the original source up as best I could, but, irony of ironies, the diary was to be used in the new WW1 display at the Imperial War Museum, and was inaccessible to researchers. I finally caught up with it, resplendent in its glass case, when the gallery reopened in 2014.

I was driving back from recording the explosions and stopped by the fields where the 7th October 1914 action takes place. This is the very important bridge that Sister Catherine crosses:


This is the field Dunster and his men charge across:

This is taken from the Chemin des Dames itself, so Mickey must have made it to the tops of one of those trees:


And proof that life imitates art. Just where Micheal had imagined M. Minet's cows and the convent...


Possibly one of the blokes responsible for the mis-shelling by the British, photographed at the Fort Nelson outpost of the Royal Armouries.

And here at the new galleries in the IWM, the Fry's bar wrapper as used by Mickey?


And photographed at Vendresse cemetery just below the ridge, a poignant reminder of the facts of the matter.

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7th October 1914

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