Walking The Somme: A Tale of Two Dugouts

The Old Front Line

Paul Reed

Education, History, Tv & Film, Film History

4.8 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2020

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode we walk the battlefields of the Somme between the villages of Hebuterne and Gommecourt where men of the 56th (London) Division fought on 1st July 1916. We look at the stories of two veterans who were in two separate dugouts here on that day: Malcolm Vyvyan MC, a Gunner officer, and Harry Coates MSM, a Sergeant in the London Scottish. The WW1 object this week is an Imperial Service Badge. Send us a text Support the show

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Old Front Line with me, military historian Paul Reed.
0:09.0	This is a regular podcast where we'll look at the history of the First World War
0:15.0	and travel together across the battlefields, from Iap to the Somme and Beyond.
0:24.6	So what's in this week's episode?
0:27.6	Hi and welcome back.
0:29.6	It's been an amazing week with the old Frontline podcast.
0:33.6	We've passed 10,000 downloads.
0:36.6	Thank you so much for all your support, for listening to the podcast, for your comments on Twitter, for your likes on Apple Podcasts and your reviews, and also for clicking on to the website, oldfrontline.com.
0:52.1	Which is proving a useful place to share some of the material
0:56.0	and the photographs and the objects I talk about in these podcasts with you on the internet.
1:01.9	It was good to cover Gallipoli on the anniversary of the landings last weekend, but this week,
1:07.2	we return to the SOM. So let's get our boots on, charge our flask and head down those dusty lanes of Piccaddy.
1:23.3	I'm standing in what feels like a sunken lane on the outskirts of the village of
1:28.5	Hiberturn in the northern part of the Somme battlefields. The track that I'm walking up
1:36.2	is completely encapsulated by trees and hedgerows which are alive with birdsong And as I walk up this lane
1:47.1	I come to the imposing entrance
1:49.2	To my first stop on this walk
1:52.3	Hebutern Military Cemetery
1:55.6	Our walk on the Somme this week
1:58.3	Is a tale of two dugouts and with that a tale of two Great
2:04.1	War veterans, Harry Coates and Malcolm Vivian. But before we get to them and where those dugouts
2:12.3	were we are starting here at Hebutern Military Cemetery.
	...

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