My recent trip to France and Belgium included a short experience in a WW1 battlefield tunnel at the Vimy Ridge Visitor Education Centre and a trudge through a trench at Sanctuary Wood.
Both were memorable experiences. Sadly, my (lack of) skill at photography is evident in looking at The Hidden World of World War I collection by American medical doctor, fine art photographer and explorer Jeff Gusky.
This reminds me of my research on a gent named Unwin-Simson, who I researched for a chum in rural Essex who has since passed away. They had been distant half brothers. Unwin-Simson was asked by the Cdn government to be head engineer in charge of fhe construction and maintenance of northern Europe memorials for Cda of the Great War, He was in charge of the Vimy Ridge memorial, but the specific stone selected by the memorial’s architect was very difficult to obtain after the war.
Unwin-Simson knew that if he let the workers of the construction works leave the work site until the stone was available, he might have a lot of difficulty recruiting new workes.
With the agreement of the Cdn government, he put those workers back to work restoring the underground bunkers around the installation,
A few years later I attended a talk by Tim Cook, speaking about the great war. I knew he was aware of the career of Unwin-Simson as a few of his books mentioned him. I told Tim I had a four inch binder on te fellow’s career, including thet he hd escaped from France with the Vaniers when Germany attacked Paris in WWII, and had spent the remainder of that war working for Vincent Massey, then Cda’s Hugh Commissioner in England.
Tim asked what it would cost to have that binder. I told him a cup of coffee, which he bought me in the cafeteria of the War Museum.
Without ever visiting Vimy I can still reminince about it. Cheers, BT
Sounds like an amazing experience! Hopefully we will get to hear more in the near future.