Ypres or Ieper. like so many places around this neck of the flood plain can be spelled and pronounced in so many combinations that it seems to be impossible to get it wrong. It’s the epicentre of a lot of awful history, the reminders of which are so omnipresent that one wonders how the people who live in the surrounding areas, deal with it.
One of the ways is in providing services to those who come almost as pilgrims to visit all those names on walls and tombstones. This is inarguably a tourist town, albeit a war tourist town which has earned its stripes in that theatre, but in exploiting its history there is a fine line that needs to be trod if the lesson taught by that very history is to be preserved as the generations with direct connections to those names begin to fade away.
“Tommy’s Souvenirs”, “The British Grenadier Bookshop” and “The Captain Cook Restaurant” no doubt have instant appeal to parochial tourists, and the numerous specialised companies competing for battlefield and cemetery tour business serve the centenary visitor throngs admirably, but really couldn’t the world live without Poppy shaped lollipops?
2 comments
I think you nailed it Peter. Both the sentiment and the image. That must have required a small tripod?
Thanks David - would you believe it was hand held? 🤣
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