In a wood south of Eap, atop the Messines Ridge, in a place named after the Bavarian

troops that built the trench system here in 1914, we find ourselves in the troglodyte world

of that landscape of the First World War as we walk the trenches of Bayanvald.

Last week I was in Flanders on the battlefields around Eap, doing some of the work that I do as part of my job as head battlefield

guide for ledger holidays. I've been working for Ledger for 28 years now,

running their battlefield program,

developing their battlefield program

and guiding many of the tours,

not just from the Great War.

I'm very lucky that the thing that's driven me pretty much all my life

has interested me, all my life, is also my job. And it's a challenging job, a demanding job,

but one that gives you a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure when you meet people who are on their own journey across this

landscape of the First World War to find their own ancestors and bringing with them

photographs and diaries and documents and stories it's forever a learning process and one of the

reasons why I never ever tire of it.

But these battlefield tours don't kind of organise themselves

and we have a team that does the admin of course

but often it requires me to go to the battlefields

and spend some time there thinking about new ideas for tours and ways

we might change existing tours, meeting some of our many battlefield partners that we

work with. And on this occasion, I was very lucky to be able to stay at the Cottage de Vink

at Hoog, which is literally on the old front line. and I was very lucky to be able to stay at the Cottage de Vink at Hougg,

...