Somme: Contalmaison to Bazentin

The Old Front Line

Paul Reed

Education, History, Tv & Film, Film History

4.8 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For the final episode of Season 5 we are back on the Somme. At Contalmaison we discover the story of how the history of Great War football weaves through that village, how a pioneering eye surgeon from Liverpool came to be killed there, and later we uncover the story of the 'Nine Brave Men' at Bazentin. We look at Private Memorials and how Bazentin Wood almost broke the proud volunteers of the 'Leicestershire Pals.' in July 1916 and think once more about the 'Forgotten Somme'. Send us a...

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	In a quiet corner of the Somme battlefields we walk from Contal Maison to Basinger,
0:08.0	we find memorials to lost officers and the story of men from Leicester who march to war.
0:16.0	More tales from the forgotten som.
0:26.7	As season five of the old front line podcast comes to an end,
0:29.9	I thought we'd finish in a familiar landscape,
0:36.4	the rolling downlands of the Somme and walk that battlefield once more.
0:37.6	We're going to look back over season five
0:40.3	and talk about the next season
0:41.8	in a little podcast extra that I'll put out next week.
0:45.9	It struck me that really I should probably do that at the end of every season.
0:50.5	Have a chat about what we've discussed
0:52.6	and some of the points and stories and information
0:55.8	that you as listeners have then sent through through the website and through email and talk
1:02.6	about what the plans are for the future so this is the end of this season but obviously not the
1:08.7	end of the old front line so more of that next week but for now
1:14.3	where are we we're on a road between the town of albert and the village of contalemasons in fact on a
1:21.9	road that runs between la boiselle and contalemaison and if we look behind us, back to the west, towards Albaea,
1:29.3	and towards that village of La Boiselle,
1:32.3	we're looking to the area where the Battle of the Somme began
1:35.3	on the 1st of July 1916 in that beautiful summer's morning,
1:41.3	a perfect summer's day, but as the Sooon called it a sunlit picture of hell.
1:47.3	When on that 18-mile front, the British Army went over the top from Gomorcore in north to Montobar in the south,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Paul Reed, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Paul Reed and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.