Ploegsteert Wood (I.P)

cloister (noun) – any quiet, secluded place.

To walk into Ploegsteert Wood is to walk into another world. The stillness is vast and all-encompassing. It is silent, except for birdsong. Pale sunlight filters down through the tall, thin trees. The trees loom impressively, standing as respectful sentinels of the past. The air is fresh and dewy. Small wildlife skitter and chirp, but the wood is completely devoid of human speech. Those who do speak talk in low tones, fearful of upsetting the quiet. The wood is large and untamed, and at first the only sign of civilisation is the dirt path, that has been worn by decades of slow-marching feet.

Ploegsteert Wood is a beautiful place, but an echo of devastation is imprinted in the air, in the soil. As tranquil as it is today, it was once a fiery, ear-splitting hell, with smashed trees, smashed bodies, smashed tomorrows and forevers. The eternal reminder of the utter destruction is the small cemeteries that dot the wood; Mud Corner, Toronto Avenue, Ploegsteert Wood Military and Rifle House.

The trees part to make way for the white headstones. The graves lie in shady cloisters, some in careful lines, other huddled together haphazardly. The cemeteries are carefully tended to, a stark contrast to the rambling wood that regrew out of the cruelest of man-made havoc to stand sentry to the silence. The headstones bear the words of the families who never got to visit, words that were their only solace – To have, to love and then to part is the saddest story of a mother's heart.

It is in these small, oft forgotten cemeteries that, despite the bloody history, a sense of peace is found. To slowly walk among the graves with a heart full of another's grief, the best comfort one can draw is the hope that they were buried with their mates.