The Ypres Times.
157
The People.
Cornflower Day on October 31st should be
an annual event, and the I.eague is also
working to secure the erection of an out
standing memorial of the immortal defence, to
preserve at Ypres a roll of the honoured dead
(numbering over a quarter of a million), to arrange
for the poor to visit the graves of their relatives
in Flanders, and to establish in the Ypres salient
a hostelry (to be endowed with beds) where the
fullest information will be available concerning
battlefields and graves. The Ypres Times," now
gay in a blue cover, goes on its prosperous way,
and the October issue is as well produced and
brightly illustrated a production as I have seen
from ex-Service quarters latterly. It is apparently
meant to excite general interest, and not to tell
officials what they already know, and, therefore,
it succeeds.
Bath Herald.
The organisers of Ypres Day hit upon one rather
novel idea. Instead of sending sellers round with
common little cardboard trays, they had the Ypres
cornflowers presented in attractive blue china bowls
in painted baskets, in fantastic boxes, and other
gaily coloured containers. Also I noticed at least
one seller accompanied by a baby boy who was
dressed in a blue pierrot suit. He looked rather
weary and cold, poor little chap, but that was due
to the season. Flower days really ought not to
be held in winter. It makes one realise how far
we have travelled since the first Alexander Rose
Day, which was the forerunner of all these others.
Londoners enjoyed the novelty of being waited
upon by a lot of white-clad girls, who gave a
touch of gladness and festivity to the sober streets.
Nowadays the most alluring girls are no longer
attracted by the opportunity of becoming occasional
flower sellers. They are far too busy pursuing
their studies, shaping their careers or electioneer
ing. Those who remain have a suspicious
Sunday-go-to-the-meeting air about them, and
as they insist upon wearing mufflers, spats, and
not very becoming coats when the weather is cold,
their appearance is not entirely a joy to the eye.
The Ypres Day idea of having decorative con
tainers for the bright blue flowers on sale went a
little way to relieve the dullness of the usual
proceedings. And yet, if the truth must be known,
the committee are a little unfortunate in their
choice of colour. Blue is not cheerful. It is cold,
almost repellant, on a frosty day. Moreover, I
noticed several gentlemen with more benevolence
than good taste wearing bright blue calico corn
flowers along with fresh red garden chrysanthe
mums in their buttonholes. Princess Beatrice
had a busy day, and must have felt like a flower
seller herself before her duties ended, for no fewer
than three bouquets were presented to her before
she finally arrived at the Cenotaph to deposit a
wreath in honour of the fallen brave.
Daily Express.
Hill 62, 1918.
Last week I stood on Hill 62, and the scene
from that war-scarred peak one evening in March,
1918, was vividly recalled. It was just that time
when men waited with a touch of apprehension
for the evils that the night must bring. The sun,
blood-red, was going down over the vast expanse
of desolation. Only a few columns of smoke
showed up a mile or two in the east, where the
men of the outpost line were longing to stretch
their cold and cramped limbs again under cover
of the darkness.
Now and again a moan from the sky told that
the long-range guns were making the railheads
and towns in the road less pleasant even than the
wilderness of mud. The jagged skeletons of Ypres
showed up clear against the sky. Zillebeke Lake
was a patch of gold. A few mounds of bricks
showed where the village had stood. Just down
below was the quagmire which once was Sanctuary
Wood. Long, snake-like lines of yellow figures
wound their way over the endless duck-boards.
Hill 62, 1922.
There is just one ruin visible on this bright
autumn morningthe Cloth Hall of Ypres. The
town itself and the suburbs, with their hundreds
of red roofS, make a-garish patch on the edge of
the picture. Etang de Zillebeke, the only feature
of the landscape that even war could not change,
sparkles in the sunlight.
From Hellfire Corner to the Menin Road and
eastward along Observatory Ridge the new village
has blazed its way. Scattered everywhere among
the growing crops are the farmsteads whose names
are written in historyMoated Grange, Dormy
House, Yeomanry Post, Valley Cottages, Leinster
Farm names the significance of which the peaceful
owners will never know. Everywhere along the
network of roads which centres on the city the
red brick, red-tiled houses have risen up like a
crop of giant poppies amid the green.
Only the shattered trees where once the wealth
of forest stood tell their eloquent tale of the
blasting breath of war.
Somthend Standard.
One of life's greatest duties is to rememberone
of the easiest things in life is to forget. The war
years, with their glorious story of national and
individual sacrifice, have become to many less even
than a memory. For some, that which lies on the
other side of Armistice Day is but dull and ancient
history. It is a long way back to the bloody, tear-
dimmed days of Ypres, when on the vacant throne
of Right sat Folly, smiling at chaos, but on Sunday
last, Ypres, Flanders, and all that they meant,
were very near, to a little band of Essex people
who clustered around the cenotaph at Southend
and remembered and revered the brave dead the
while a bitter east wind swept around them. It
