With the start of a new season, in this case, season 9 of the old front line,

and approaching our sixth year of podcasting incredibly,

we begin the season, as we often do, on the Somme battlefields in northern France.

The Somme is part of the landscape of the Western Front. We've covered it many times on this podcast,

and while we have spent many podcast hours walking its lanes crossing its muddy fields

and peeling back the canopy of its woods there's still much to discuss and discover i think

and it's a battlefield i'm sure we will return to again and again.

There is something about the Somme, and when I say that, I think many of you will know what I mean.

It's a landscape past and present, often where past and present cross over.

It's history, the stories of those who were there. Somehow it almost defines the way

we see the Great War. And for this episode, technically we find ourselves outside what is today

the department of the Som in the neighbouring Paddacale, and our journey will take us across the ground between two villages

in that area, Foncavilié and Gomcour. We visited the Gomor battlefield before examining the

story of the fighting between nearby Hebuttern and Gomorcore with the 56 London Division from the perspective of two veterans who were there, Malcolm Vivian and Harry Coates, and looked at the fighting that took place there on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

And we'll retain our interest in that day for this podcast, but instead we're going to focus on the neighbouring attack by the 46 North

Midland Division in that sector just to the north. So where do we begin? Well, we're just to the

west of Foncaville village at the Foncavillet Military Cemetery. It's down wood tree-lined lane,

very much in a rural location, surrounded by trees.

For the nature lovers who return to the landscape of the Western Front,

it is a place which is full of bird life at different times of the year,

a kind of secluded place where we find

those criss-cross paths of the Great War and we can find peace and tranquility and reach out and

...