244
THE YPRES TIMES
ON November 1st, 1932, Lieut. General Sir W. P. Pulteney, G.C.V.O., K.C.B.,
Etc., Chairman of the Ypres League, addressed a letter to members asking
each to subscribe 2s. towards a worked banner bearing Lord Plumer's
Coat-of-Arms, and any surplus money over and above the cost of the banner to be
placed in trust to form a fund to provide free education to a child at the Ypres
British School as a Plumer Scholarship.
For the interest of our members we herewith publish the balance sheet
Subscriptions. Expenditure.
s. d. s. d.
Nov. 8th, 1932, to Sept. 30th, 1933 174 10 10 Printing, Stationery, Postages,
Cheque Book, Transit of the
Banner to Ypres and Custom
Duty 17 18 7
Cost of Banner 27 7 6
Accountancy Charges 4 4 0
£49 10 1
Credit Balance 125 0 9
£174 10 10 £174 10 10
The Banner is placed in the chancel of the Ypres British Church and was
dedicated on June 4th, 1933 by His Lordship The Bishop of London.
Scholarship for the School.
The £125 credit balance will be placed in trust with the Provost of Eton, and
the interest on the capital will be devoted to the free education of a boy at the
British School at Ypres.
Ypregj 1918=1933
IT was generally surmised at the close of the war that Ypres was so utterly
blasted to bits and its environs so irreparably scarred that it was probable that
this section of the old battle front would be left as it was as a monument and
memorial of the terrific struggle waged there.
Certainly nobody ever anticipated the complete restoration of the town and its
surrounding villages and countryside in the comparatively short time that has elapsed
since the last "five point nine" soared over the Menin Road, and to anyone who has
not watched the annual gradual transition from the wreckage of war to the peaceful
pursuits of industry and commerce, with nature adding her quota to the labours of
mankind, the revelation now in 1933 must be truly astounding.
Ascend the tower of the Cloth Hallnow once again keeping sentinel over the
peaceful Flemish plains, see again the well-wooded nature of the old Salient with its
numerous hamlets and churches, look also toward the Yser Canal once blocked with
the debris of war but now once more giving Ypres a clear passage to the sea, its
miniature dock with wharfside elevator and warehouse all ready for loading and
unloading water-borne merchandise from such small craft as can usually be seen on
Belgian waterways.
With the rebuilding of the Cloth Hall now in progress the visible links with the
war years are now practically effaced and one must search in odd corners for any
vestige of war ruin, for this re-born Flemish City is loth to remind one of its wounds.