LIKE most French villages in the middle of the day, the streets of Fromelles were deserted when I stepped off the local bus in front of the ubiquitous Town Hall with Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite carved into the facade.
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Peter Hodge has retraced the footsteps of his grandfather, Jack, who was soldier during WW1. Picture: Stuart Mcevoy
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Riding through the pancake flat countryside, under leaden skies that refused to clear the entire time I was in French Flanders, it's obvious most of the architecture is a post-war reconstruction effort: relatively dull and functional.
Fromelles, close to the Belgian border, is not large or significant enough to feature on my giant Michelin map of France or in my Lonely Planet guide. However the steady stream of visitors, many of them like myself attempting to connect with a distant past, belie this status.
I'm retracing the footsteps of my paternal grandfather who passed away in 1972. The few remaining memories of the time I shared with John Morley Cornelius Hodge (Jack, to his friends and family) are of a man ravaged by Parkinson's disease, immobile and incontinent in the family house. Fragments of his life - postcards, medals, war memorabilia - are in my keeping.
They reveal a different man, one I long to know and understand.
