Lochiel Memorial Programme, Bergues, October 2008
Payment
and Confirmation of Attendance
To confirm your intention to attend please send the organiser of this event, John D. Graham, an email to johndgraham@t-online.de
(My apologies. There was an error with this email link but I think it works OK now --Lewie)
If you prefer to fax the number is +49-2066-370 999, John's phone number is +49-2066-33318 and geographical address is Am Flutgraben 22 D-47198 Duisburg, Germany
As announced in The
Jacobite, participants are asked to send a deposit of £ 50 to the Treasurer of
the 1745 Association:
Michael Nevin
FCCA, Kilgour,
2 Spencer Place, Trinity,
Edinburgh EH5 3HF.
Email:
mike@nevinassociates.co.uk
You
may also choose to send this amount by bank transfer, including the remark “Lochiel
Event” and not forgetting your name. If you
would like to pay by this means please email John Graham who will provide you
with the details
NB: Please don’t forget to give your name on the transfer slip along with the remark “Lochiel Event” to help Mike to identify the purpose of the transfer and the person sending the amount otherwise you will cause us a lot of unnecessary effort and we will be unable to inform you that we have your Eurostar ticket.
1. Programme
Thursday,
23 October 2008
Leave London Saint
Pancras International at 14:04h,
arriving
at Lille Gare de l’Europe 16.24h
Since
participants will be travelling from different stations of departure, we shall
have to ask them to make their own arrangements to join us at St Pancras in
London in time for the Eurostar train to Lille.
All
participants arriving on this train from London St Pancras International, due to
arrive in Lille Gare de l’Europe at 16:24h, will be met by our coach at the
station in Lille.
Transfer
to our hotel for the duration of the stay which is:
Hôtel du Lac, 2, bordure du
lac, F-59380 Armbouts-Cappel,
Dunkirk. Tel. : +33-3-28-60-70-60 ; Fax. : +33-3-28-61-06-39 .
(The hotel is close to the 25 motorway but quite some distance from the centre
of Dunkirk and approx. 5 miles from Bergues);
Email hotel.dulac@wanadoo.fr;
Website www.hoteldulacdk.com
NB Please do not book your hotel
accommodation yourself unless you decide to stay in some other hotel. We can
only obtain the special rates in the Hôtel du Lac if the bookings are made
centrally.
Friday,
24 October 2008
Friday forenoon: Bergues, Tourist Office and walk round the town and its ramparts. (Your chance to familiarise yourself with this charming town and take in some of the sights in addition to the Vauban fortifications.)
The flag of the Lion of Flanders flies on the town walls, which are remarkably complete.
[Just by the way:
Bergues was unknown to most of the French population until very recently.
A film featuring Dany Boon has now been made there called “Bienvenue chez les
Ch’tis” (a sort of soap opera centred around the post office in Bergues
except that the ‘post office’ in the film is in fact the office of EDF and
it is on the wall of this office that our plaque to Lochiel was affixed in
2000!) This means that Bergues is now firmly on the tourist trail in both France
and Belgium.]
There are any number
of cafés, restaurants and bars where you can find a bite to eat at midday,
bearing in mind that we have an evening meal waiting for us in the hotel at the
end of the day.
Friday
afternoon:
14:00h
we meet at our coach for the short trip to Gravelines.
Gravelines
– 14:30 h conducted tour of the fortified town (also by Vauban) on foot with
an English-speaking guide (Duration approx. 1½ hours so we would all be well
advised to wear sensible, comfortable shoes.). This will be followed by a visit
to the “Espace Tourville”.
16:00
h Exhibition in the “Espace Tourville” in Port Royal (Gravelines’ access to the English Channel) and ship
construction site. This is where a first rank vessel of Louis XIV’s royal
navy, “Le Jean Bart”, is being re-constructed (duration approx. one and a
half hours).
[Background:
In 1692 a French fleet was assembled under Admiral Tourville at the
request of Louis XIV to bring James II and VII (his cousin) to Britain,
accompanied by English, Irish and Scottish troops to reclaim the British thrones
for the Stuarts from William of Orange. The fleet was destroyed off St
Vaast-la-Hougue in Normandy.]
[In
a diving expedition in 1985, Christian
Cardin of the Association Tourville found some six wrecks from this battle. On
the basis of information gained on the construction of two of the vessels
recovered, Christian Cardin founded the Association Tourville and initiated a
project to reconstruct an exact replica of one of these seventeenth-century
vessels. (To learn more about the Tourville project you
can visit www.tourville.asso.fr
which is in French and English.)]
[Jean
Bart was a French privateer (1650 – 1702) born in Dunkirk. He has the same
status in France as Sir Walter Raleigh in England. He was knighted by Louis XIV
in 1694 and features on most postcards in the north of France. There is even a
street named after him in Bergues. The Cardin project has chosen the name of the
reconstructed vessel well.]
Our
guide will most probably be Christian Cardin himself.
Return
to the hotel for our evening meal.
Saturday,
25 October 2008
Saturday
morning:
Bergues - museum and visit to the library and/or archives in the town
hall. Late forenoon: Carillon in the square in front of the town hall and belfry.
This will probably be followed by the obligatory speeches and toasts.
Proceed to the cemetery for the unveiling of the plaque.
Saturday
evening:
Meal in a typical Flanders hostelry, Le Bruegel (photograph below), followed by a cheese
and whisky session where whisky has been matched to various local cheeses.
|
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| The belfry in Bergues | The belfry has a carillon of 50 bells. | The mairie was rebuilt in 1871. Its façade carries the arms of Philip IV of Spain. |
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| Restaurant Bruegel | Plaque on wall of EdF offices. On the site of the military hospital where Lochiel died |
Sunday,
26 October 2008
Sunday morning: Depart hotel, deposit floral tribute to Lochiel in cemetery (260th anniversary of Lochiel's death) and proceed to the Gare de l’Europe station in Lille in time for the train back to London St Pancras.
Comments:
Julian Hutchings
will be in Bergues in April to re-establish contact with the town hall. (Our
contact there lost in the elections in March, so Julian will have to rebuild all
contacts and clear our programme with the new mayor.)
Final
costs will be known by then and we will be able to let all participants know how
much they will have to pay. We still have no definite statement from the coach
company. If this is not forthcoming in the very near future, we will still have
time to look for an alternative.
By
then we should also know roughly how many participants there will be. To
establish the price for each participant, we have to know how many will be
participating so as to be able to divide the total costs by that number.
Unfortunately,
due to severe ill health the present Lochiel will not be able to join us in
Bergues but will be represented by members of his immediate family.
The Clan
Cameron Association, the Royal Stuart Society, and the 1st Marquis of
Montrose Society have reported on the memorial project in their respective
journals, inviting their members to register for this trip, so it is hoped that
this will result in more participants. The 1745 Association’s website and the
Jacobite will provide up-dated information and the same applies for members of
the Alliance France-Ecosse on their website as and when updated information is
available.
Members
of the Clan Cameron Association, the Royal Stuart Society, and the 1st
Marquis of Montrose Society will be joining the Alliance France-Ecosse and the
1745 Association to ensure that a worthy tribute is paid to that great Scottish
national hero, “The Gentle Lochiel”. This will also be our tribute to the
late Dr Jutta Nordone and Ross MacKenzie, who longed so much for such a
memorial.
Travel:
We
intend to travel from London St Pancras International on the Eurostar train
which is scheduled (at present) to leave London at 14:04h, arriving in Lille at
16:24h. The coach will be at the station Lille Gare de l’Europe in good time
to pick up participants and transport them to the hotel.
Because
the participants will be starting from so many different places and that some of
you will have special preferences, we thought the simplest way to proceed would
be to ask you to make your own travel arrangements for the trip to London St
Pancras International and back.
(By
way of example: There is a train at 08:00h from Edinburgh, arriving at London
Kings Cross at 12:17h. This will leave some allowance for delays, late arrival,
etc. The APEX fare we were quoted
in February was £ 43.20 from Edinburgh to London Kings Cross.
Your nearest railway enquiries office or your local travel agent will be able to
provide you with up-to-date information, bearing in mind that the railway
services do not as a rule provide information or sell tickets more than 12 weeks
in advance.)
Please
make sure that you arrive at St Pancras International in good time. Neither the
train nor the rest of our party will be able to wait for anyone who arrives
later.
If you
should decide to retain your independence, there is a wide variety of ferries to
choose from and there is a special offer by the operators of the EuroTunnel at
present of £ 49 per car per journey. Information from 0870/011/3674 or
eurotunnel.com/times.
The sooner Mike can book tickets
for a group of at least 10 persons on the Eurostar, the lower the fare will be.
Of course, later registration is possible but will almost inevitably incur a
higher rate.
There
are charges which have to be covered in France (coach, entrance fees, etc.). You
will receive instructions on how to pay these charges at a later stage but no
later than end July. We do not wish to have all participants transferring money
to France. This will be covered in one single operation, thereby saving us all
unnecessary costs.
The hotel charges include three days, two at half board, but no drinks
are included. We shall expect the participants to settle the hotel charges and
other incidental expenses (telephone, etc.) personally. The hotel accepts all
the usual credit cards. The same applies to the evening meal on Saturday in Le
Brueghel.
The
associations taking part have each agreed to make a contribution towards payment
of the plaque to be erected in the cemetery.
Press and media representatives have been informed and will be reminded again shortly before the event.
Update:
25 May 2008
I can now update some
details of our planned trip to Bergues in October.
In addition to his trip
to Culloden in April, Julian Hutchings was totally snowed under with work in the
weeks preceding my disappearance to the south of France on 20 April.
On my return from France
I attended a conference in Cologne before dashing off to England for a meeting
there.
It was only then that
Julian and I managed to make contact and pass on details.
1)
Julian has now been to Bergues and has met the new team in the mairie. They are absolutely enthusiastic about our memorial event and
will give us whatever support we need.
2)
The town hall is also a bit leery of trying to hang a heavy bronze plaque
on the wall of the building at the entrance to the cemetery and will examine the
possibilities of an alternative solution (stone cairn inside the cemetery, etc.
or some action to shore up the wall). Jean Bonduelle is making it a point of
honour to sit on their backs to make sure that something positive emerges in
good time.
3)
My attempts to secure the services of a coach company to transport us to
and from the hotel and Lille have not been rewarded with any kind of success to
date. I still have one more card to
play but Julian wants to make a last try himself before I try that.
We need hard figures by the end of June at the latest.
4)
Julian has informed me that he has received several indications from
others that they would like to be with us in Bergues, thereby swelling the
number of participants. I only hope
that I know about these before we contract for the coach.
It would be embarrassing to say the very least if we needed to change the
size of the coach and then have to inform the participants of the change in
costs of participation. Julian has written an article for NMS and the Scots
Magazine to help announce the event and has paid for an advertisement in the
Scots Magazine for the next three months as well. This is almost bound to help
us a bit and might well result in picking up a few more participants.
5)
Julian had long talks with Lochiel and also with Alan Cameron at Culloden
in April. As we had already presumed, Lochiel himself will almost certainly not
be present in person in Bergues. However, the immediate family will be
represented.
6)
Lochiel and Alan Cameron have given us the right to use the Cameron crest
for the plaque.
7)
The plaque is now giving us a bit of a headache. The quotation we have is
in euros. The euro has increased in value over recent weeks and is now worth
more than we originally expected. The situation may change again but we have to
be prepared for a higher price for the plaque in GBP than we had already
budgeted for. Julian reckons the total cost will amount to £ 1,466 at an
exchange rate of £ 84 for €UR 100. (Our original calculations were based on
£ 67 for €UR 100.)
8)
The Royal Stuart Society are now supporting the project but cannot
themselves afford to make any contribution towards the plaque.
However, Tom Fitzgerald has just informed me that some RSS members wish
to make a donation. I have proposed
that we leave RSS as a supporter of the project on the plaque.
I hope that this is a decision which meets with your support.
In respect of transferring monies, I referred him to Mike Nevin. In
addition to this, we have a promised donation of £ 75 from the 1st Marquis of
Montrose Society.
9)
Together with Alliance France-Écosse and the Clan Cameron Association,
it now looks as though they and the 1745 Association are going to have to bear
the brunt of the costs. However, we do not now expect to have to pay for any
measures the mairie in Bergues may make to provide us with a site for the
plaque.
10)
Julian and I have worked out a system of transferring the funds to France
to pay for the plaque etc. Mike will call in the pledges we have received and
transfer these to AFE’s account in Edinburgh. AFE can then have the require
amount transferred to the AFE account in France. The problem here is that we
shall have to move very fast. Julian may need to transfer the amounts due from
the AFE account in France before the end of June.
11)
We are now rearranging the programme for Saturday, 25 October.
Julian has contacts who can provide some entertainment from our side
(pipers, dancers and some AFE supporters in uniforms of 18th century
Ecossois) to acknowledge and repay the carillon “serenade” from the belfry
in the town square and add to the spectacle.
Jean Bonduelle is arranging for us to view the “géants”. As
president of the Association des Géants he is actively involved in this
movement which consists of towns in the north of France and in Belgium competing
to produce the best “géant”. These huge effigies (some are well over 10
feet high) on a lightweight frame are carried by a man inside the structure who
then prances about and dances as the procession moves along. (It may not be
carnival in Rio but this is a colourful and entertaining sequence of events and,
even if the late Lochiel was a lot less than enthusiastic about having any
Lochiel portrayed as a “géant”, there is a lot to be said for it at local
level.)
12)
I have now arranged to meet up with Julian in Orléans again but this
cannot take place until the first weekend in July. We hope that we will have
finalised figures and have tidied up any loose ends by then. Immediately after
this meeting, I shall notify you of any changes and supply you with the latest
details.
13)
Mike will make the initial reservation of tickets for the trip before the
end of June to take advantage of any early bird offers. Any participant joining
us at a later stage may well have to pay more for the Eurostar.
14)
I hope that he or I will be able to send out notification to all
participants as to the costs of trip shortly afterwards.
15)
It is essential that Mike notify either me or Julian of any payments he
receives and indicating from whom the payment has been received so that I can
reserve accommodation in Armbouts-Cappel (if required) and make sure that we
have a big enough coach. Julian needs this information as well.
You will be kept up to
date as and when any changes or additions are made.
Kindest regards,
John
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