Well, it is a poor photo of a ploughed field in Northern France. I took the photograph last Saturday during a cheerful but cold weekend visiting the frozen pipes at my dilapidated maison secondaire with the wife, and checking out an above-average turnout of wildlife (wild boar, deer, an owl and (strangely for France) an unshot pheasant). But before going on about ploughed fields in Northern France let me have a mini-rant about East Hampshire County Council or whichever local authority it was that spent over a quarter of a million quid last year on “renovating” the public loo in the middle of the main car park in Petersfield.
The old public convenience used to work fine but “improvements” had to be made. After all the council charges 70p per hour for the privilege of parking in the main car park and people who spend that sort of money deserve the most modern toilets with automatic lighting and (an innovation) a 20p charge for use of the Ladies. The work took months and months and months and temporary portaloos (honey-buckets to my American readers) were installed. Shortly before Christmas the result of all this disruption was unveiled – a public loo in the middle of a car park.
This morning I rumbled around the town doing my chores and with a chill wind blowing I suddenly felt an urgent need to have a piddle. Off to the new Gents to sort matters out - only to find the entire building surrounded by red tape (fittingly) and signs advising the public that the WCs were closed until further notice. Grrrr!
Now, let’s go back to the ploughed field in Northern France. There are an awful lot of ploughed fields in Northern France and many come with buckets of history attached to them. But to an Englishman this one is something special. Back on 25th October 1415 it wasn’t as cold as it was on Saturday, but it was then a ploughed field apparently very muddy following lots of rain. There were rather more people about on that day. The photo is taken from just behind the position of the French line of battle at Agincourt. Facing the French were Henry V’s dysentery-ridden English and Welsh longbowmen (5,000) and fairly knackered foot soldiers and knights in armour (900). The exact size of Charles VI’s army will never be known, but it was probably around 30,000. In any event it was the sheer size of the French army which prevented manoeuvrability and contributed to the defeat, although the longbow undoubtedly won the day (up to 15,000 arrows airborne at any time – phew!).
Earlier in the day I had read several chapters of Juliet Barker’s excellent new account of the battle, Agincourt: The King, The Campaign, The Battle, and promptly drove off with the wife to revisit the battlefield and see the new tourist “centre” which has opened in Azincourt village. Oddly, despite being a beautiful, sunny afternoon (although very cold) and situated less than an hour’s drive from Calais, we were the only visitors to the “centre”, and certainly no-one else was remotely interested in the bleak old battlefield ringing in the imagination though it may be with the voices of Olivier and Branagh:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon St Crispin’s day.
