June 7, 2017 – exactly 100 years after the Battle of Messines and Cyril Le lievre’s death. To help this post flow more nicely I am going to write using the time-table I was given for the day.

06:00: I was picked up really early from the BnB in order to make it to the NZ Commemoration Service on time. The whole of Messines was going into shutdown mode: Once you were in you couldn’t go out and vise versa. This was for the protection of the NZ Governor General, Prince William and the Ambassador of NZ, and also to make sure there was no risk of terrorist attacks. Our car, bags and bodies were searched upon arrival for weapons and about 5 armed guards were posted on each street corner. If I thought Bordeaux’s security during the Fete de Fleuve was huge – it had nothing on this!

08.00: New Zealand 100th Commemoration Service at Messines Ridge Cemetery.

Once again it was another horrible day and everyone was turning blue from the wind and rain. I immediately went in search of Martin before the ceremony started. From there, he took me a seating area for the families who were meeting the governor general! I felt a perfect blend of excitement and fear. The ceremony – which I was very excited for – wasn’t as emotional as I thought it would be. I heard nothing over the wind except for the national anthem being sung and the Kapa Haka performing. It was so nice to see New Zealand’s culture again – I had really missed how strong and present it was in my everyday life in NZ. I’d lost all feeling in my fingers by the end of the ceremony and when I met the Governor General I was more focused on keeping warm than being nervous. She was such a very petite women with drool worthy tailored clothes, somehow her every hair was perfectly in place despite the raging wind. I felt like a drowned rat next to her! She shook my hand and then I briefly told her about my family’s participation in WW1 and then it was over just like that! I was pretty high on life for about half an hour after:D

10.00: Governor General’s morning tea following Messines Ridge service (invite only).

Somehow I got an invite to the Governor General’s morning tea ( I have no idea how that happened), which was held in the Church of Messines. Martin took me there and introduced me to a few cadets and some kids my age, so I ended up sticking with them for morning tea. They were really nice and we organised to meet up later. During the morning tea I got to talk to some pretty high up people; The Ambassador of NZ, the representitive of the Leaders of Belgium and Germany and the head of the …………………………….WAIT FOR AARONS RESPONSE

12:00: Show Govenor General the exhibition

Before I got to Belgium Martin had asked me if I wanted to show the Governor General a small exhibition called “The 100 NZ Faces of Messines”. The exhibition was a way of showing the types of people who were in the war and the effects it had on them and their families and friends. Cyril was one of the faces there. Martin showed me what to do and then there was nothing to do but wait. I was only given a 3 minute time slot with her but she ended up staying for 12 minutes! I started by showing Her Excellency her Great Uncle Freddy who died in the war, and then Cyril, and then that was supposed to be all but she asked for more! Luckily I had looked through it all while I was waiting for her (Martin told me too – thanks Martin!) and so I showed her the only NZ Nurse to have died on the Western Front and a family of four brothers who died. The whole time I was freaking out on the inside because there was a photographer taking photos of us and about 10 people including the Ambassador who were also watching! Go to the Governor General’s Twitter page and you’ll see me!!

13:00 Governor Generals Lunch (Invite only)

Once again I found myself at the Church of Messines dining with anyone who was anyone, I felt like I was in a dream because it wasn’t at all my normal scene. But the food was great! A lot of speeches were made and I was introduced to so many people and was chatting away like there was no tomorrow ( I was definitely making the most of speaking English for a week).

After the Lunch Martin and I were walking to the Peace Village when we saw a swarm of police motor bikes and cars coming down the road which was strange seeing as the town was on lock down. In the middle of them we saw a black land rover with a royal flag on it! PRINCE WILLIAM WAS IN THE CAR! The windows were tinted so we couldn’t get a good look at him but he was sitting on the side closest to us and I saw his ear very clearly. I saw the ear to the throne!!!

When we arrived at the Peace Village they said he had just been there. After having a hot chocolate Martin and I headed to a hall to set up the room for some guest speakers. We were both pretty wrecked at this point, I’d only had a 5 hour sleep the night before so I crashed while we waited for everyone. I stayed for the speakers and I admit, I thought it would be boring but it was actually so interesting! The first speaker – Dr Jeff McNeill –  talked about The New Zealanders at Messines. He used maps that clearly showed their movement over the ridge and everything really slotted into place after touring the same places yesterday. He also revealed some insane numbers about causalities that haven’t been publicly available until recently, you can read all about it in his book which will be coming out soon.

The second speaker was Ross Thomas, the Executive Producer of “Beneath Hill 60”, he talked about the making of the film in a very humorous way and I decided I have to go and see it now.

19.30: New Zealand – Sunset ceromony at the New Zealand Memorial

The Sunset ceremony was the final one of the day. The service was amazing. A live band played music that told a story while the cadets and people acted out scenes. It started off very calm and a lady sang a sad song saying that “I’ll come back home to you” and the music built up. There was a still silence and then BAM gunshots erupted from all around us and I got the fright of my life! Luckily they were just drums but they sounded so realistic. Cadets dressed in the origional WW1 uniforms slowely walked around and seeing them dressed like that really made you realise how real it was. You really had to be there to experience the emotions, I got so sad, especially knowing that it was in the field behind behing me my Great Great Uncle Cyril died on this day, 100 years ago. Unfortunely I do have to say the experience was not as nice as it could have been because during “moments of rememberence and silence” and throughout the wholee ceromony people everywhere were taking photos and videos, and I found it was rather disrespectful as there were already professionals there for that.

21:00 Mayor’s party (invite only)

At this point I was so emotional and beyond tired, but I decided to go to finish the day with a bang. Luckily I’d reached that hyper stage of tiredness so it didn’t affect me too much anyway. And I’m glad I did go! I was able to meet up with one of the Cadets I’d met earlier called Aaron and we hung out for the whole night. A nice man gave me a few badges which were exactly what I’d been looking for – ones that said a 100 year difference. I was disappointed when I had to go because I was having such a blast but by then it was 11 and I still had a fairly busy day the day after.