With the co-operation of two French communes (Haute Sambre-Bois L’Eveque, Mayor Marc Dufrenne, and Ors, Mayor Jacky Duminy) and the Wilfred Owen Association France, the Rector of the Academie de Lille, Mme Marie-Jeanne Philippe, is organizing a special event to mark the 13th Day of Remembrance in Education in France on Friday 27 May.
This special day will honour the memory of Wilfred Owen and will bring together 160 students from colleges and lycees in Nord Pas de Calais who have studied Owen’s work. Students from a school in Maidstone, Kent, have also been invited.
The day will begin at 10am near the Forester’s House, where Owen wrote his last letter, and will continue with a walk through the forest, retracing his last steps as he prepared for combat on November 4th 1918. The official ceremony will take place at 12.30pm at the tomb of the poet in the small cemetery of the village of Ors, where there will be speeches, as well as poetry readings, in English and French, by the students.
In the afternoon students will visit sites of the two Battles of Cambrai in 1917 and 1918 and will conclude at the Tank de Flesquieres, ten kilometres from Cambrai.
The event has the support of the Vimy Foundation, the War Graves Commission and the Wellington Quarry at Arras.
Peter Owen, president of the Wilfred Owen Association, will be present at this special event to commemorate his Uncle and remember the sacrifices made by soldiers of the British Army during WW1.
