Battle of the Somme...

None of the pictures in this blip belong to me and I thank the people who took them and made it possible for me to commemorate this day in our history.

We are remembering the day in 1916, during World War I, when the Battle of the Somme began in northern France. The first shot was fired at 7.28 am, UK time, and by the time the battle drew to its exhausted close on 18th November 1916, over 1,000,000 young men on all sides had died. If there has been a battle with more deaths I’m not aware of it.Towns like Accrington, a mill town north of the city, lost an entire generation of young men on the first day. There have been events commemorating it in the Valley of the Somme in France and at St. Paul’s yesterday. But the honour of being the centre of the nation’s commemoration of this dreadful event today has been given to Manchester.

Last night the Imperial War Museum (in spite of its bombastic name, is actually a museum to the futility of war and the fragility of peace) in the Quays was lit up to mark the event.

The poppies, the flower we use to help remember our war dead, have flowered on time across the city.

There has been a laying of wreaths at the Cenotaph in St. Peter’s Square and a military parade through the city centre starting in Albert Square.

Members of the government (whoever they are, we’re not sure at the moment) and the Queen are in the city for a service at Manchester Cathedral.

But by far the most moving tribute has been the ‘ghost’ soldiers who have been marching through the city, dressed in World War I uniforms, popping up in various places among the everyday life of modern Manchester. Not speaking or interacting with the population in any way, they have made us think about the young men who left the city, and other communities across the country, and never returned. It’s been a sobering, moving commemoration of the battle.

Here they are outside the Apple Store in the Arndale Centre.

And the extra picture is of some of the real soldiers at the Battle of the Somme. I wonder how many made it home?