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22/05/2024
BATTLEFIELD TRIP TO YPRES
September 2025
3 days 2 nights B&B
Novotel Ypres Centre
Your Society is pleased to announce your long-awaited executive coach trip to the Ypres Salient. Due to the unprecedented hike in the cost of Eurotunnel we will be using the DFDS Ferry which includes a meal voucher for each passenger on both crossings. However please bring with you a packed lunch should you require food between your onboard breakfast and your evening meal.
It is intended that our trip will include visits to the following: -
Day 1 - Friday
05.30 from HQ (Welwyn Garden City)
06.50 from Ebbsfleet International Station
DFDS Ferry (Dover to Calais)
Lijssenhoek cemetery
Poperinghe (Toc H, Condemned Cell and Ginger’s statue)
Essex Farm Cemetery,
19.30 Group participation at the Menin Gate wreath laying
Day 2 – Saturday
Passchendaele Ridge (Tyne Cot Cemetery)
St Julien (Herts War Memorial)
Langemark German Cemetery
Harry Patch Corner
Welsh memorial.
Lunch at Hooge crater café and museum (included in tour price) visit to cemetery across the road
After lunch a walk along the Ramparts from the newly refurbished Menin Gate finishing at The Kazmatten microbrewery, located in one of the Ramparts casemates used during World War One. (Kazmatten visit included in your tour price)
Evening at Leisure.
Day 3 – Sunday
Messines Ridge taking in the football memorial and New Zealand soldier statue,
Irish Peace Tower
Prowse Point Cemetery and trenches
Berks memorial and cemetery
Ploegsteert 14 - 18 museum
Lunch at L’Auberge (Ploegsteert) included in tour price.
Return Ferry crossing DFDS and drop offs as above.
It is hoped to provide this trip at
£450 Per person sharing Twin or Double
£550 Per person in a single room
To secure your place on this wonderful trip please email us at hertsgreatwar@virginmedia.com for a booking form.
Speaker Nigel Crompton, with a talk entitled 'The Women Police Service during The Great War'
Details in 'Trench Foot Notes'.
Portsmouth Historic Docks trip Cancelled, due to lack of numbers.
Please don’t forget our next meeting. Doors open at 7.00pm for a 7.30 start on Wednesday 3rd April
Details in ‘Trench Foot Notes’
To update you, the committee looked at the feasibility of a trip to Ypres this year and decided that with the work currently being done on the Menin Gate and several other factors, that it was not viable for this year. However we are actively looking at a trip in 2025, after the work on the Menin Gates has been completed.
We are however looking at day trips we can organise this year, so watch out for emails regarding these.
On Wednesday 29th May Hertfordshire Constabulary Great War Society are hosting a London walk, guided by Lee Emmerson, who used to be a Force trainer and is a badged London Guide. The walk is entitled ‘Winston Churchill’s London at War Walk’
The tour will begin at 12:15 and will be approximately 90 minutes.
The tour will finish at the Churchill War Rooms,
The Sports and Social Club have passes for the War Rooms, which we have reserved. Members of the Sports and Social Club can use the pass, together with their Sports and Social Club membership card, to gain entry. Passes issued on a first come first served basis by us, so there is NO need to contact Sports and Social Club. Non-members of Sports and Social Club will have to pay us for tickets, which are £32 each. This tour is only open to Members of HPGWS and their guests.
We will have lunch at the Café at The War Rooms (not provided), which specialises in classic British food home-cooked pies, stews and tarts alongside a range of deli sandwiches. Cakes, muffins and scones are also available. The café only takes cards for payment.
After lunch we will tour the Churchill War Rooms as a group, complete with audio guide. We should be leaving The War Rooms by 4.15pm, but you can stay until they are closed at 6pm if you wish.
We are happy for those not wishing to join us at the Churchill war rooms to just do the walk, but please still book and note that the café is after entry into The War Rooms, so will not be available to you, but there are plenty of watering holes available nearby.
To book places on this exclusive walk please email us at
hertsgreatwar@virginmedia.com ,
Please give the names of the people you are booking for and your Sports and Social Club membership numbers. If you do not furnish a membership number, we will invoice you for £32 payment per person, due immediately. No payment required if not attending The War Rooms.
Your committee are grateful to Lee for offering this tour to us free of charge.
Just for your information, Colin was hoping to organise a coach trip to Ypres in May however due to the triennial “Cat Festival”, which dates back to medieval times when cats were cast to their death from the very top of the impressive Cloth Hall tower, all hotel rooms have sold out. Efforts are currently in hand to attempt to run this trip later in 2024, we will keep you informed.
We also advise that you don't take your car on holiday to Ypers this year.
from your Committee.
Jim, Terry, Colin, Rudi and Ian.
As usual our December meeting will be a Christmas Curry meeting. If you would like a curry please email to order. Our Speaker will be Peter Hart, with a talk entitled 'Chocs Away'
39 members of the Society went on a trip to St Quentin, France to tour the battlefields from 1918 in that area. Thanks to the hard work of Terry, Jim and Colin a good time was had by all, despite the best efforts of Eurotunnel to sabotage the travel arrangements.
A highlight of the trip was two poems recited by Marcus and Jim. Links to videos of these can be found below.
20230909_104024.mp4 20230909_160731.mp4
| 03/02/2023 Wednesdays Meeting Problems For the many of you who came to Wednesdays meeting only to find your committee standing bewildered outside a dark and locked venue, we would once again like to apologise. Thank you for your patience and forbearance, as we decanted to Headquarters in what must be the longest convoy Welwyn Garden City has ever seen, whilst losing the speaker on route. Eventually having found the speaker again, had what the committee thought was a very different and interesting talk about transport on the Western Front. Ian has visited our venue this morning and spoken to the management in person. Apparently our email booking this years meetings was mislaid after it had been received and acknowledged, so our meeting was not in their diary. Ian has ensured all the forthcoming meetings for this year are now in the diary and will be double checking the arrangements in future. The management of our venue have offered their sincere apologies, together with some financial compensation, which has pleased Terry our treasurer. So now we can look forward to our next meeting at our venue on Wednesday 5th April, when Ross Beadle will be talking to us about ‘The Origins of the Schlieffen Plan’ Wishing you all good health. Your Committee |
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Thanks to our member Keith for pointing out Netflix have a new WW1 film released on Friday. It's called'All quiet on the Western Front' The first two versions were brilliant, I wonder what this one will be like. Here is a link to the trailer: - https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81260280?s=a&trkid=13747225&t=wha&vlang=en&clip=81624967 |
For articles and photos of our trips to Verdun and Slovenia please go to the links on our menu above.
We are grateful to our member Dave for informing us of this event.
"The Temple at War Show is on at 14th & 15th May 2022 at Cressing Barns, Witham Road, Cressing, Braintree. CM77 8PD.
One of our pre COVID speakers (Paul Weaver) will be there with all of his WWI re-enactors.
Paul always brings loads of great stuff which he is always happy to show & talk about.
It’s a thoroughly good day out & fairly local."
Further details can be obtained at;-
Temple At War Military & Vintage Show Essex
IWM LIVE
IWM Live is a new event being run at Duxford between 10:00 and 18:30 on Saturday 11th June 2022. It will be a one-day history festival, introducing you with IWM experts, authors, academics, museum partners and subject specialists.
You will be able to build your own event line up of historical lectures, book talks and signings, museum tours and close-up experiences with items from the IWM collections, dependant on your particular subject interest.
The event will discuss and explore conflict from WW1 to the present day.
Many of the experts involved will be familiar to the society including Prof. Gary Sheffield; Alan Wakefield; Taff Gillingham ……..
Having had the initial volunteers briefing today – it looks as if it will be an excellent event
Details (which are being constantly updated) can be found on the IWM web site at : https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/iwm-duxford/iwm-live
The links in the Sorts and Social Club page are not currently working due to their Web site being down.
If yo need Sports and Ssocial Club joining forms, please contact them direct or email us.
07/01/2022 A Place available on Verdun trip ( Now all taken 21/2/2022)
Due to someone dropping out we now have three places available for our trip to Verdun from Friday 6th May to Monday 9th May 2022. If you would like to see more details and receive a booking form, please email us at our usual email address.
Well that didn't take long. Our Somme trip in April 2023 is fully subscribed, but we are still taking applications to be reserves, just in case anyone has to drop out.
The trip to the Somme in September still has a few spaces remaining. Please email us at hertsgreatwar@virginmedia.com if you are interested.
Check out our latest link in the links section. It's to The Great War Forum.
There you will find a mine of information regarding the Great War. A great site if you are doing research.
09/10/2021 AGM and New trips
At our AGM on Wednesday 6th October the rule changes which we notified you about prior to the meeting were passed. These mean that only paying members of the Sports and Social Club can benefit from discounts we offer on trips, but this provision applies to all paying members, whichever force they served in.
If you would like to join the Sports and Social Club to obtain the benefits of membership, please go to our web page at www.hcgws.org/sports-and-social-club for further details.
The chair also announced two new trips we would like to run in 2023. Both cover The Somme, one for the 1916 period and one for the 1918 period. If you would like to register your interest for either one or both these trips, please contact us.
REGISTER OF INTEREST
SOMME TRIP APRIL 2023
Departing on a Friday in April 2023 and staying in Arras, hopefully at the Mecure Hotel, we will visit some of our favourite spots around the Albert area of the 1916 Somme battlefield. Please register your interest now and nearer the time we will provide full particulars of the trip and the prices. Once you have these further particulars you are welcome to drop out if the itinerary or cost do not meet your requirements. No money is required at this time.
REGISTER OF INTEREST
SOMME TRIP SEPTEMBER 2023
Departing on a Friday in September 2023 and staying in St Quentin, hopefully at the Ibis Hotel, we will visit some of our favourite spots around the St Quentin area of the 1918 Somme battlefield and the famous Hindenberg Line. Please register your interest now and nearer the time we will provide full particulars of the trip and the prices. Once you have these further particulars you are welcome to drop out if the itinerary or cost do not meet your requirements. No money is required at this time.
Our next meeting will be at 7pm on Wednesday 6th October 2021. When our Chair will give a talk about 'The Lost Battalion'.
Usual venue.
Our newsletter was also posted to members yesterday, so if you haven't received it , please have a look in your spam folder or contact The Secretary to have it sent again.
I'm sure you will be pleased to hear that Terry our treasurer has re-newed our public liability insurance for another year.
Details of our certificate can be found on the 'Society Trips Terms and Conditions' page.
Please follow the link to go to our good friends Battle Honours latest 'Quickfirer', which has details of their latest tours.
Quickfirer and your next Live event with Battle Honours (mailchi.mp)
19/4/21 Battle Honours Quickfirer
Please follow the link to go to our good friends Battle Honours latest 'Quickfirer', which has details of their latest tours.
Quickfirer and your next Live event with Battle Honours (mailchi.mp)
Unfortunately the following email has been sent to all those booked for the trip.
Dear Member
Your safety is our primary concern, closely followed by the safety of your money!
Yesterday’s announcement by Grant Shapps that people ought not to be booking holidays prompted the Great War Society committee to review the position with our tour to Verdun booked for May this year. Enquiries with the French revealed a number of the state owned/operated sites we intend to visit will not be opening before June.
Sadly in light of this we have decided the best course of action will be for us to postpone the trip to 2022. Departing Friday 6 May and returning Monday 9 May 2022.
We will make all the necessary arrangements for 2022 on a provisional basis and we will come back to you in early 2022 when we know firm prices when you can either confirm your place on the trip or let us know you have changed your mind when we will allocate your seat to another member of the Society.
So pop the new dates in your diary, no further booking forms are required and no money will be needed until 2022 then cross your fingers that we can get this tour completed at our third attempt.
In the meantime keep reading Trench Foot Notes and look out for details of our own simple exciting and free online lectures which will be starting soon.
Stay safe, warmest wishes from
Jim, Ian, Colin, Rudi and Terry
Your Committee
We have added links to The Hertfordshire Regiment website (Part of the Beds. Regiment site) and to The Cambridgeshire Regiment 1914-1918 site, on our Links page.
Hope you find these interesting.
Please let us know if you would like us to put any other web sites on our links page.
Our good friends at Battle Honours have just released their latest newsletter 'The Quickfirer' please use this link to have a look at it
The Quickfirer (mailchi.mp)
Unfortunately due to Government restrictions your Committee have had to cancel the Christmas Curry Meeting on 2nd December 2020.
No further meetings will be planned until the Government restrictions are lifted, whenever that may be.
We will send you a message by email when the situation changes (Please check your spam folder to make sure you don't miss it) and you can also keep up to date on our web site at www.hcgws.org
We have added a Sports and Social Club page to our web site, from where you can get information and forms to join the Sports and Social Club.
Hello Hertfordshire Constabulary Great War Society Member
Our email system has reported that our latest email sending you our newsletter has been rejected by the PNN system and not delivered to our PNN members.
We are sorry for this inconvenience and will be contacting ICT to try and rectify this problem.
In the meantime if you would like to read our newsletter please go to our website at www.hcgws.org, where you will find the newsletter link in the home page headings.
You may wish to have our emails sent to your private email address, in order to prevent this type of problem in the future.
If you do, please just go to our web site at www.hcgws.org and at the bottom of the home page fill in the joining form, using your personal email. It would assist if in the connection to Police section you could put either 'Serving Officer PNN' or 'Serving Staff PNN'
Once received we will delete your PNN email address and replace with your personal one.
Thank you again for your understanding.
HCGWS Committee
In spite of the best efforts of your committee, our venue still cannot accommodate our October meeting, so it remains cancelled.
This should have been our AGM, but the good news is that all the current committee are willing to continue in post. In view of the unique circumstances, unless anyone objects, the current committee will continue for a further year.
Please email hertsgreatwar@virginmedia.com to register any objections.
Ian , Secretary
19/08/2020
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THE VERDUN TOUR
The Society trip to Verdun in May this year had to be postponed due to the pandemic.
We have now set the new date for the trip –
7th to 10th May 2021
Friday 7 May 2021
An early departure from Police HQ and spend the day travelling by executive coach to the Hotel at Verdun with a stop for lunch in the lovely town of St Quentin
Saturday 8 May 2021
Straight onto the battlefields with a visit to the Verdun Memorial Museum, then local sites and the infamous and fascinating Fort Douaumont
Sunday 9 May 2021
The beautiful American cemetery at Meuse-Argonne followed by the magnificent American memorial tower at Montfaucon then for the highlight of the tour a private visit to the huge tunnel system below Vauquois. Several kilometres of French and German tunnels beneath this utterly destroyed village.
Monday 10 May 2021
A visit to Fort Vaux, where the defending French troops ran out of drinking water and were forced to lick condensation from the walls before finally surrendering. Coach back to Blighty with lunch again at the most pleasant main square in St Quentin.
We are still re-booking museums and lunches so at this point in time we are not sure what the final cost will be for this exciting trip. Everyone who was booked on the 2020 trip will be offered a place on the 2021 trip if they want it. Further details will be sent to you as soon as we have the price finalised.
Fingers crossed the second wave of the pandemic does not scupper us this time
Looking forward to travelling with you and sharing loads of amazing stories.
Jim and Terry