At 7:28am on 1 July 1916 - the first day of the infamous Battle of the Somme - the British forces detonated a mine containing 24 tonnes of explosives. Cecil Arthur Lewis, a Lieutenant (who later went on to found the BBC) was there, and describes the explosion:
The whole earth heaved and flashed, a tremendous and magnificent column rose up in the sky. There was an ear-splitting roar drowning all the guns, flinging the machine sideways in the repercussing air. The earth column rose higher and higher to almost 4,000 feet. There it hung, or seemed to hang, for a moment in the air, like the silhouette of some great cypress tree, then fell away in a widening cone of dust and debris.
The explosion from the mine created what was then the loudest man-made sound in history, with reports that it was heard in London. In fact, the crater can still be seen today.
What this illustrates is that when something devastating happens, the effects are felt far and wide. And so, when a baby is lost, it is not just the parents who grieve.
The whole earth heaved and flashed, a tremendous and magnificent column rose up in the sky. There was an ear-splitting roar drowning all the guns, flinging the machine sideways in the repercussing air. The earth column rose higher and higher to almost 4,000 feet. There it hung, or seemed to hang, for a moment in the air, like the silhouette of some great cypress tree, then fell away in a widening cone of dust and debris.
The explosion from the mine created what was then the loudest man-made sound in history, with reports that it was heard in London. In fact, the crater can still be seen today.
What this illustrates is that when something devastating happens, the effects are felt far and wide. And so, when a baby is lost, it is not just the parents who grieve.
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