We went to see the film Dunkirk last Friday. Not entertainment and harrowing from start to finish, Bit of a soft ending, not needed really but what a magnificent production to bring home the horror. Superb music, no great acting.

Then I watched the ceremony from the Menin Gate on Sunday evening, which we will visit in September. Beautifully handled although the injection of humour with the two bits of Wipers Times, didn't hit the right mark. Humour can be used in sombre events, but this didn't work for me although as a stand alone comedy I enjoyed it.

Very very moving all of it.

We also went to see 'Dunkirk' and agree with your comments , an excellent report 👍 Kathy and Martin.

Visiting Ypres in September and visiting Carole's uncle's grave.

Humour can be what is needed to temper the horrors of warfare. Not having seen Dunkirk I cannot comment on the film but my late father in law, Bill, was there.
In one of the reviews of the film there was an interview with a survivor from HMS Grenade which was hit by a bomb which went down the funnel while the ship was alongside the mole at Dunkirk. Bill was a torpedo officer on Grenade and was transferred to HMS Harvester as an instructor a few days before the evacuation.
Whilst serving on Harvester in the North Atlantic, Bill said that on one occasion they forced a U-Boat to the surface and the crew abandoned ship. After some debate it was decided to pick them up. By tradition the submarine captain was the last to leave his ship and on reaching the deck of Harvester, threw a very smart, stiff armed Nazi salute and a 'Heil Hitler'. They threw him back in the water. They picked him up the second time much subdued.
Bill was taken off from Harvester at Plymouth with an impacted wisdom tooth and the ship sailed without him. It never returned.
He went on to serve in the Arctic on HMS Kent.
He told of another incident whilst in the Med off Gibraltar. He was aboard HMS Talybont having applied for promotion from Petty Officer.
The Captain of Talybont was apparently newly promoted from the admiralty, getting in some 'sea time' and was not a very popular man. He blocked Bill's promotion because 'he has been swanning around the med in the sunshine while the real fighting was going on elsewhere'.
One day, the Captain decided to take a visiting VIP for a swim, not realising that there some very strong currents through the straights.
He and the VIP ended up some six miles from the ship, the lookout having 'not noticed they were missing'.
Bill never lost his sense of humour despite the things he had been through, only being reticent about the bad things that happened. When he died in 2014, he was most of the way through a (handwritten) memoir.

I will also be going to Belgium in on October 9th to Tyne Cot to place a white rose against the wall. John George(Jack)Prince b. 1886 -1st battalion, 4th Division Yorks and Lancs regiment. - missing in action 9th October 1917 - Passchendaele