Patricia Hammond

Our visit to France was incredible. I have here a couple of fragments of footage, and a few photographs, but really only a book would do this trip justice.

We discovered the amazing work that the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, the German War Graves Commission, does. The reason for the “Volksbund” is because when Germany was defeated, it was bankrupt, and it was people – Farmers, Priests, Rabbis, old ladies – who helped to bury and record the vast numbers of dead. The Volksbund have been operating through donations from relatives and descendants, and volunteers for the vast majority of their existence and it was only very recently they started to have some government help. They are still kept going by amazing volunteers, one of whom gave me his baseball cap with their “Peace” logo on it.

We also met the young people who are involved so closely with the Volksbund. In fact, within a short time after our arrival at Luxembourg Airport we were whisked along motorways and then into remote French forests which had the unmistakable whiff of the First World War – something about the nature of the terrain, the eerie feel of the place – and in the depths of one of the forests, a campfire where these Scouts were playing guitars and singing old old songs. They were girls and boys and they were called Pfadfinder. Matt immediately blended his guitar with theirs, and I did my best to sing along to their songs. Then we performed “Tipperary”, and then it was nearly 2am but Arne, the incredible man who organises the events that the Volksbund puts on, was telling the children, who looked to be from about 8 to 15 years of age, the many stories of the ongoing discoveries of the Volksbund. Very near the place we were sitting, in the forest of Caures, the remains of Hans Winkelmann were found and identified, and the day after that, we would be burying him beside his beloved brother Karl. That was the big event we were to perform at.

Here is a fragment of footage from it. I apologise that there is no more than this:

But before that, the NEXT day, was something very close to our hearts. We had found an old piece of music, a heart-rending song, scribbled down in a trench in Verdun by the composer Ernst Brockmann. I won’t tell the story again, because at least two past blog posts on this website tell it already. But it was the next day that we were to honour him.

It was damp and the clay round his grave, of course, fresh from the recent exhumation. The Pfadfinder youths, some Reservists from around Brockmann’s area of North Rhine-Westphalia (incidentally, where I finally found the book with his song in it) who had seen active service, and of course Arne, and Maurice, the Media-man for the Volksbund, all stood in a circle round his cross, which still says “Unbekkanter Deutscher Soldat” and one of the Pfadfinder girls read out his dates and the biography they’d managed to find, and looped a copy of the song around the cross, along with a small German flag. We then performed his song for him, after 100 years of his lying there, unnamed. It was so deeply happy an outcome, at last, that I didn’t feel tears. Not until the Pfadfinder brought out their guitars and sang a regimental song of the 39th Fusiliers, which was so full of hope and youth, and in the setting of all those crosses, truly devastating. No words for it.
This is why youth are so closely involved with the Volksbund. This is about past and present and future.

We hope we can get some donations for a stone cross with Ernst Brockmann’s name on it.

After the big ceremony the next day, we had a look at the cemetery where Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande were to meet the next day, overlooking the view of where so much blood poured out a hundred years ago, and had a final, quiet and rather melancholy visit to Brockmann, warm rain falling, so very alone in that hillside cemetery. We flew back to Heathrow, drove through the night to North Yorkshire, arrived at 2am, and did the cylinder-making demonstration for the Swaledale Festival the following day. We sold one CD and one cylinder. A devastating commentary on the relevance of the CD!
It’s too small to tell in this photo, but we each wore our VDK forget-me-not pin.

After recording the CD “Songs of the Great War” I sent a copy to the German War Graves Commission; I was interested in finding out more about the composer of “Bald Allzubalde”. The old sheet music in which I found the song (dated 1917), said that he’d composed it on the 20th April, 1916 and died there on the 7th of June, 1916. They told me they would start a search, and incidentally, they liked my CD and performance and would I and Matt be interested in coming over and singing the song, and a couple more, at the hundredth anniversary commemoration of Verdun? Would we!

Here I think I should remind everyone what this extraordinary song sounds like:

And it uses accordion, guitar and clarinet on the CD! Well, two months ago, Arne Schrader of the Volksbund Kriegsgräberfürsorge contacted me to tell me that they have found him! He was buried nameless, as “E.B.” of the 39th Fusiliers. And they sent me the exhumation photos. I have never, ever had an experience like this! They positively identified him, and found that he had been buried with a clock. On the 27th of this month, I and Matt will go over there and with some Wandervogel, or Boy Scouts, lay a wreath on his grave, restore his name to him, and sing this song over him. As I say, amazing. Then the next day we will perform at the Romagne sous Montfaucon cemetery, where a Commonwealth, a German and a French section lie side by side, and a lone trumpeter will stand at each, and perform “Aux Morts,” “Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” and “The Last Post” in turn, and we will sing later in the ceremony. This story of Ernst Brockmann, young composer buried without a name, is one that I was certain that the radio would be all over. I have told as many producers as I can find, but no bites. Astonishing, really. If anyone knows anyone, please spread the word. I think this is a great story, and important.

Never mind!

We’ll be rushing from the Verdun battlefields to the Yorkshire Dales to demonstrate wax cylinder making…driving through the night!

I was also hugely honoured to be a living exhibit in the Edwardian Parlour that is in the TRULY BRILLIANT and UNMISSABLE exhibition “Remembering 1916” that is in South Croydon at the Whitgift School…seriously, GO. It is a fiver for seniors, seven quid for adults, next to nothing for students.

Open to the public from 10-5 daily. It has more rarities than I would have thought possible, and is put together with passion and no expense spared. Take a train from Victoria, and just go! Then I sang in the concert that opened the exhibition. That is one extraordinary school.

My CD “Songs of the Great War” has been reviewed by a major critical music journal, at long last (Well, you see, it’s not classical, and it’s not jazz, is it! Even Norman Lebrecht sympathised) But bless the American Record Guide, they DID review it. Read it HERE.

Oh! On the 26th of June I’ll be performing songs about the cinema with the Mighty Wurlitzer, at the Musical Museum in Kew! With, moreover, Donald MacKenzie at the console! Following me will be Laurel and Hardy’s “Angora Love”, Mack Sennett’s “Teddy at the Throttle” and Charlie Chaplin in “The Rink”, all with Wurlitzer accompaniment! Starting at 3pm. Do come along and say hello!

The Renaissance CD is all recorded, and all I’m waiting for is booklet text approval from my colleagues! I’ll announce when this beauty will be available! It’s tremendous fun, and will contain the bawdy Broadside Ballad “Watkins Ale”. And this song: