Day 8 – Arras to Bapaume

‘The village used to have everything from the baptistery to the cemetery’

Sunday 8/4/2018

Distance 26.1km Total Distance from Canterbury 198.7km

Sunday morning in Arras was very sleepy. I headed back through the city centre finding it quite deserted, a big change from the previous day. I followed the Raju book to begin with. This brought me down to the railway station and soon again out on to the open road. Very quickly I was in Beaurains and a small military cemetery which I visited. The previous graves I had visited where in a parish graveyard. This was the first I would see of the very many dedicated military cemeteries. This one was British, with 331 commonwealth graves and the graves of four Germans. It was immaculately kept, and there is a visitor’s book and a register so that each individual gravestone is readily identified. The  graveyard was designed by Edwin Lutyens. He also was the architect of the intended Catholic cathedral in Liverpool, of which the crypt was built and is now incorporated into the modern cathedral. i am guessing he designed a ‘standard’ cemetery with the cross, and its platform and the style of the walls. I stayed a while.

I moved on and passed through Mercatel and was on a long rather muddy road through fields of sprouting wheat. Very quickly I came to another cemetery, There were 416 Commonwealth graves and four German ones. Is this still a ‘small’ cemetery? It had a curious name, Sunken Road Cemetery. The cemeteries were apparently sited very near to field hospitals. One imagines that in the heat of battle they were very much less dignified places than they now appear. Presumably the German soldiers were POWs who died in the hospital. This was close to Boisleux-au-Mont and then Hamelincourt. The names are very pretty for such a sobering and sad place. Next I came upon a small wayside chapel – there are lots of these, and found two interesting pieces of evidence. On the altar was a day-by-day diary for the year. Five pilgrims ha signed their name in 2018, and all of them within the past week. And there was an encouraging sign, despite the somewhat imaginative spelling.

There was a big brick church in the village with hugely enthusiastic ringing of bells. On Sunday I thought this might be for Mass, but in fact it was the Angelus, a prayer said two or three times during the day, traditionally at 0600, 1200 adnd 1800. There is a famous painting by Millet showing people stopped in the fields to pray, see above. The church of course was locked.

As I passed a gate I heard a voice greeting me. A friendly looking lady greeted me and asked me if i needed anything. I said I would be happy with a glass of water. Nicole was possibly a few years older than me. She welcomed me into her farmhouse kitchen. She had extremely good idiomatic English. She sympathised at my mistaking the Angelus bells for Mass. She told me that she had lived here in recent years with her mother who had died since Christmas, at the age of 93. She and her mother were both happy that she had stayed at home until the end. Now she would move, when the time felt right. The farm would be sold.  In the past, the village was a good place to live, and everything was at hand. Now people live here but commute to Paris and elsewhere to work. In the past a farm could employ 20 or 30 people. Now with machines, one or two can run it. There is nothing to keep people in the country. There are few very enthusiastic farmers around – potatoes, and wheat mainly, but also sugar beet, and sometimes cows.  In the past everything was in the village, ‘from the baptistery to the cemetery.’ Now things have changed. There is no longer any community in the village. And there are no shops and no bar. Bread is delivered on alternate days and other provisions are available from a mobile shop which comes once a week. But is not the same. If you haven’t got your own transport you are very cut off .She tole me that she likes to take one day off or the week and perhaps do a bit of recreational cookery. She will move to Normandy eventually, where she used to work. She had a mixture of sadness and contentment. She told me that Mass was only in the village every four or five weeks, but she had enjoyed watching Mass on TV this morning, from Marseilles. i enjoyed the cool water and the gentle philosophy and carried on refreshed. Nicole told me that she always enjoys chatting to pilgrims, but it is very early in the year for them!

My route continued on a back road to Ervillers and then the ‘main road’ D917 directly into Bapaume. Bapaume was in fiesta mood with a bustling street market and the funfair was in town. It seems a lively place. I continued to my hotel, something of a (moderate) luxury break to mark the Sunday. Very smart, and very friendly and wonderful food. All the other guests were from UK, two couples, and a family on the way home after an Easter holiday. Despite having been walking for a week, I am only an hour or so’s drive from the car ferries.