A war long forgotten : feeling the past in an English country village

The setting for this paper is a quiet local road in North Yorkshire, the B1217. Skirting the edges of a small village, the road tracks a more-or-less south-westerly route until it intersects with the M1 motorway, notorious both for its volume of traffic and subsequent delays. The B1217 is our starting point not for the role it plays in Britain's flow of traffic, however. Rather, we are interested in what lies beside it: an average looking agricultural field, in the corner of which stands an old cross, a monument to a battle. On some days, the base of the cross is adorned with small clusters of poppies or larger sprays of white roses (the symbol of Yorkshire), left as a mark of respect. At other times little wooden crosses can be found" the same as those used on Armistice Day and which, like the poppies, are associated with more recent conflicts as a sign of remembrance.