Stamford Branch’s only Youth Member, Ashley McNeill, recently returned from a three-day school trip to France to see the battlefields of WW1, where he was asked to lay a wreath to remember the fallen.

On the first day of the trip, the students toured the Somme battlefields and stayed at the International School Hotel, Poppies d'Albert, in Albert on the Somme. On the second day, they travelled to Zonnebeke in Belgium where they visited the Passchendaele museum. They then took a break to fill up on a ‘Tommy tucker lunch’ before walking the road to Passchendaele in full equipment.

After visiting Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium, the students travelled to Ypres. Because of Ashley’s enthusiasm, teachers at the Voyager Academy in Peterborough asked him to lay a wreath at the Menin Gate, fully kitted out in his WW1 uniform. Ashley, who is only 14 years old, said: “I was nervous but privileged and delighted to pay my respects in this way.”

On the third day the students visited Vimy ridge where many Canadian soldiers were killed, before heading back home.