James was a miner, born in Bendigo. He didn't have an easy life. His mother died when he was very young. He was orphaned at nine, when his father, also a miner, was killed in a mining accident. The four children were raised by mining families.
James met and married Matilda Allsopp at Lucknow, near Orange. They had one daughter, Gladys, our Nan. The family moved to Broken Hill, where James was a miner. Gladys would play the organ at St James, would meet George Herbert, marry, have babies Joan, Dorothy and Alan. She was a delight as a Nan, but grew sad and quiet when asked about her dad.
Meanwhile, Germany had invaded Belgium and France and the mighty Commonwealth was responding with force, calling on Australia and New Zealand, among others.
By 1916, the conflict had bogged down in deadly trench warfare along a wide front. England hatched a plan to tunnel under the enemy line and explode massive bombs. Miners were recruited in their thousands from England and the colonies for the job.
James joined them at the age of 41, probably old for a miner, leaving Nan a girl of sixteen. He sailed to England and then the front. He was dead within six months of bronchitis. The tunnelling companies completed their deadly work. The bombs were exploded - the biggest explosion the world had known then - heard and felt in London. The enemy was in disarray and Messines Ridge rapidly taken by the allies.
We caught the train down to Brussels and changed for Ypres. Here stands the Menin Gate and most allied troops passed this place as they marched to the front. Ypres was reduced to rubble in the war but has been rebuilt. It is a beautiful city, with an exquisite baroque 'cloth hall' and churches. We walked to our hotel from the station. It was bitterly cold.
It snowed overnight and the kids delighted in dusting the car and playing around before we drove to Estaires. Half an hour in the car with Dad driving on the wrong side of a snowy road and Mum navigating with inadequate maps produced the appropriate level of solemnity in them as we approached the cemetery.
The Estaires communal cemetery holds both military and civilian graves. Gravely ill, James was taken from the trenches to a field hospital in a school there, where he died. We found his grave among many. There was snow on the ground and an icy wind.
I imagined being a soldier there, cold, afraid and sick, in the mud and ice. And I imagined my grandmother and her mother, hearing after Christmas that he had died on 18 December 1916. So sad.
Sometime later, they would receive a medal with his name - so many were sent that they came to be known as a 'dead man's penny'. Unlike us, they would never visit his grave on the other side of the world. So sad.
It begins to snow. We take photos. The kids dust snow from headstones. Hugh starts playing around on the slippery stones and I chip him angrily, mutter something about respect, regret it instantly.
We leave a photo - perhaps the last taken of James, at his grave. He is in uniform, standing with his daughter and wife. He is not a young man and looking at it, I wonder why he went. Was it patriotism? The special need for miners?
We drive on to Messines Ridge, where the tunnellers did their work. In my mind, the ridge was sharp and dangerous. In front of me is a gentle rise in farm land, snow covered, peaceful. Where one of the mines was exploded, taking with it Germans and their munitions, there is now a huge crater. It has filled with icy water, is surrounded by forest, has been renamed the peace pool. So sad.
Later, we drive to Tyne Cot cemetery. I think we do this because it is the largest of all the countless military cemeteries. God knows why biggest is best when it comes to cemeteries. It is snowing and bitterly cold. I learn that the central monument is built around a concrete German bunker, taken by Australians. Oi oi oi.
We go back to our hotel, which is lovely and warm.
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