BENEATH THE POPPY FIELDS – Armistice Day

So once again it’s Armistice Day when the signing of the Armistice at the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month ended The Great War – the war to end all wars – in 1918.

Like many of you I will wear my poppy with pride at my local cenotaph in my village and say a prayer of gratitude for the valiant coalminers who are still down there, buried in their tunnels; and of course all the Allied Forces who gave their all in both World Wars and in Korea, Iraq, Northern Ireland, Afghanistan, the Falklands, and various other active service operations around the world in which they paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

BENEATH THE POPPY FIELDS takes you down the tunnels in that horrendous subterranean war where our coalminers fought so valiantly and, in my humble opinion, the tunnellers’ gallant efforts were instrumental in bringing the war to its end in 1918; but for them the war would have continued relentlessly wasting many more young lives.

The book also tells you about the wives of the miners who were left alone with children to look after. How their men were propagandised into going to war leaving wives and girlfriends behind, many of them to become widows, like my grandmother with seven kids, my uncle and aunts, who suffered in World War II, again because of political lunacy.

I know many of you have lost loved ones, so tomorrow is a poignant day for all of us.

BENEATH THE POPPY FIELDS by Christopher Chance