When I heard the talk which inspired the recent discussion with Professor Mark Connolly about chalk, Englishness and the Great War, he mentioned a book called England in France.

This was a book I'd seen many times over the years and kind of dismissed really, but he inspired me to find a copy,

and one turned up with a nice personal inscription to Brigadier General Stansfield, CMG, DSO,

who'd served and commanded 178th Infantry Brigade in the 59th Division

and died two decades after the Great War just down the road from me in Hithing Kent.

The book has some fascinating insights into the landscape of conflict and the landscape behind the lines as well,

with texts written by Charles Vince in the style of a country walking guide.

The black and white illustrations that are profusely within the book were provided by Sidney R. Jones,

who the book states had served in the Royal

Engineers in the 59th Division. It's not really a rare book, but certainly it's not a standard

war book. It's not about bombs, bullets and baynets. It's a lot more than that, really. I mean,

whatever is a standard war book, but it's definitely

one worth looking out for. And while I was reading it, one entry grabbed my attention when

Charles Vince came to talk about the 59th Division's time in Flanders. He says, on the south coast of England, just outside the town

of Rye is a tower 600 years old and now half a ruin. It is the earliest of English memorials to

Ipe. It was built in the time when Rye was one of the chief ports of England,

an Epe across the water, the centre of the woollen trade of Northern Europe.

Its name is the Epe Tower.

Mr E. V. Lucas, in his book on Sussex, which he wrote in 1903, speaks of the prosaic inhabitants of Rye,

who call it Wipers Tower.

No one knows in this world what would be poetry the day after tomorrow.

So I'd always assumed that Wipers was a wartime corruption of Epe by the British Tommy's,

...