“It was night. I couldn’t see and the sides were crumbling. I thought I’d drown, but I put my foot the right way and managed to drag myself out. But I couldn’t move until dawn because there might be booby-traps.”
In his darker moments, he can still see his pilots turn to “jelly” in the wreckage of their burning planes just yards in front of his position.
Nine decades on, the memory still brings back the tears. He prefers to dwell on the few happier moments of the war. “There was great camaraderie. You knew you could bank on the other bloke.”
And he is as modest as the next man. “It was those poor devils in the trenches, marching 20 miles with all their kit on a bowl of soup, it was them who won the war.”
One of those “poor devils” was Private Jack Oborne of the 52nd Devonshire Light Infantry, although, like all the rest, he sees himself as lucky. Certainly, if it wasn’t for the pocket watch which his father gave him in 1917, he wouldn’t be at the Cenotaph this morning.
He had already taken one bullet in the leg at Passchendaele – otherwise known as the Third Battle of Ypres – when a German bullet hit him in the chest. It hit the watch instead of Mr Oborne.
“He has never talked about it much,” says his son, David Oborne, 77. “If you’ve seen a shell throw up bodies blown up by a previous shell, you just try to block it out. I’ve tried to get things out of him but I can’t.”
All of these men – two of whom span three centuries – are still haunted by the events of 90 years ago. We may not share their ghosts. But we should never ignore their memories.
Why I’ll keep on riding to the rescue of Blenheim
By John Spencer Churchill,
11th Duke of Marlborough
The Mail on Sunday, August 8, 2004
Running a stately home today is very much a business – that’s the way it has to be. It has to be well thought-out, well organised and well run. It’s something we have developed over a period of time and will continue to do so.
The first paying visitors were admitted to the house in 1950. In those days, we opened only four days a week. Then I managed to persuade my father to open for five days a week. When I took over in 1972 I realised we had to be open seven days a week.
Recently we increased the number of days that we’re open by extending the season – this improves the bottom line. We have to open more days because the expenses are going up all the time. This year, for example, we’re staying open until December 12 – and will re-open next year in February.