Thiepval at 85

The Spectator 7.7.2001

On Sunday 1 July there was a service at Thiepval commemorating the 85^th anniversary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Sebastian Faulks, who was there, writes: ‘Lutyens’s Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is one of the mournfully great buildings of Europe, and until you have seen those names, like footnotes on the sky, you cannot fully comprehend who we are or how we got here. This was my wife’s moment of understanding. She had sat through the service without the door opening, but when afterwards she wandered in those columns of the list she was visibly shaken, overcome by the knowledge of what had happened and by the redemptive power of love and memory.’