We took the kids to the village ‘cérémonie d’armistice’ on Saturday, though explaining its meaning to a 4-year-old wasn’t easy. (His perception of war was created one sunny day outside Marseilles airport when a jeep-full of handsome of French soldiers swung in front of us all smiles and winks. A recruitment campaign if ever I saw one).
We joined a good number of villagers, some decorated with medals, and some time after 11 (this is France, after all) were led by the mayor and four flag-bearers to the cemetery at the top of the hill. Here the village band - ranging from our 10-year-old neighbour upwards - played the Marseillaise. Flowers were laid and there was silence, excepting Child A who asked repeatedly, and loudly, why dead bodies are put under the ground, and not left out on top.
All four sides of the war memorial are carved with the names of villagers lost in World War One and in a village this size it’s heart-wrenching to imagine how empty but for grief this place must have felt.
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