It is ten years since my previous visit to the National Memorial Arboretum. The Memorial Arboretum is still as peaceful and moving as I remembered. There are now over 400 memorials so it is impossible to see them all during one visit.
This year this the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings so the Arboretum is exploring the events of WWII and people that were affected by them.
We chose this as the theme for our visit whereas our previous visit in 2014 followed a First World War Centenary trail centred on WWI memorials.
When we arrived, we had lunch before visiting ‘The Year Was 1944’ exhibition. This culminates in a moving film by sand artist Kseniya Simonova. She manipulates sand to trace the journey of one man and his family from the outbreak of war through the beaches of Normandy and on to the present day.
By the end of the film, I felt quite emotional.
We then walked around the Arboretum taking in highlighted memorials relevant to the events of 1944. The route also introduced me to memorials that I hadn’t seen on my previous visit.
There is still another area that I haven’t yet explored in the outer meadow and woodland area of the Arboretum…
Of course it was an emotional experience. And the closer your ties to a particular war, the more emotional it becomes. I have very close ties to WW1, the Russian Revolution and WW2, but I have no knowledge of the American Civil War, for example, or the Boer War.
For me it is WWI and WWII but some of the more recent wars affect me in a similar way for different reasons.