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Column: Antoine Verschoot’s last ‘Last Post’ in Ypres

Coquitlam principal John Goheen on Ypres, where every day is Remembrance Day
Antoine Verschoot
Antoine Verschoot

Coquitlam principal John Goheen on Ypres, where every day is Remembrance Day

 

Ieper (Ypres), Belgium

12 December 2015 

It’s 7:30 p.m. and the Belgian policeman’s whistle pierces the cold, dark December night in Flanders. Traffic is halted and even the impatient and shivering teenager on the motorcycle will have to wait.

The audience that started arriving well over an hour ago now numbers in the thousands. Most evenings, the size of the audience at the Last Post Ceremony at Ypres’ Menin Gate is impressive, but this is no ordinary night.

This is Antoine Verschoot’s last night. He will play his last “Last Post.”

I doubt Antoine imagined that when he started playing at this ceremony in 1954, he would do so most nights for the next 61 years. In that time, he has played for royalty, prime ministers and presidents as well as many thousands of pilgrims who come to this town and this ceremony from every corner of the globe year round to remember.

Now, at age 90, Antoine is the most senior member of the small corps of buglers from the Ypres Volunteer Fire Brigade who perform this daily ritual; tonight, after playing more than 15,000 performances, Antoine will sound his last note but the ceremony will go on.

The Last Post at the Menin Gate is a ritual performed every night since Nov. 11, 1929. In all weather, in front of thousands or dozens or none, the buglers come to attention at 8 p.m. sharp and sound the first note of “The Last Post.” The only exception to this devoted tribute was during the Second World War, when the Nazis occupied Ypres and would not permit the ceremony. But the very evening of the day Ypres was liberated in September 1944, the buglers returned and have played every night ever since.

Antoine’s longevity is remarkable but the real significance of his final ceremony is simply that another bugler will take his place tomorrow night and become part of the long line of succession that perpetuates this ritual of remembrance. Despite the passage of time, locals will tell you, “We never forget.” 

Sadly, far too many in Canada have.

For Canadians, Ypres was once a well-known place name. Situated in the heart of the Flanders region of Belgium, the city and Canada were forever linked during the Great War when Canadian soldiers fought and died in numerous battles in the area in 1915, ’16, and ’17. Known as “Wipers” by the soldiers, the town was never far from the frontline. 

My grandfather was one of those who knew “Wipers” until wounded in 1916. His war lasted just weeks but his wounds would cause pain and suffering for the rest of his days.

Through the town’s eastern gate, known as the Menin Road Gate, marched tens of thousands of soldiers of the British Empire, including Canadians, on their way to the front just a few kilometres away. For much of the war, the British front line in this area extended, finger-like, as a bulge or salient into German occupied territory; the Ypres Salient was always under enemy fire and observation at all times, and was considered the most heavily shelled place on earth by 1917.

By war’s end, Ypres was little more than rubble. Every building save the old post office was destroyed or damaged. Today, the town stands rebuilt and, to the unaware, appears centuries old. The citizens of Ypres rebuilt their town brick by brick after the war.

On the site of the town’s old east gate, the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing was erected. The memorial is an immense arch that lists the names of 55,399 soldiers of the armies of the British Empire, all killed within a modern day 10-minute drive from here. Their bodies were never found. As the memorial explains:

“Here are recorded names of officers and men who fell in Ypres Salient but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.”

They are the “missing.” In fact, there are over 100,000 British Empire soldiers missing in the Ypres area alone. Some still lie in the now green fields and occasionally their remains are found; others simply vanished for all time in the fire of war.

Included among the rolls of the missing are 6,940 Canadians killed in the savage fighting here between 1915 and 1917. Almost 10,000 more of their comrades are buried in numerous cemeteries that mark the battlegrounds of the old Ypres Salient — St. Julian, Gravenstafel Ridge, St. Eloi, Hill 62 and, worst of all, Passchendaele — names that are forever linked to Canada’s sacrifice.

Soon, Antoine’s part in this incredible ritual will be history but he retires knowing that Remembrance is renewed nightly at the Menin Gate. In Ypres, every day is Remembrance Day. 

John Goheen is the principal of Rochester elementary school in Coquitlam and the tour guide for the Royal Canadian Legion’s Pilgrimage of Remembrance for more than 20 years.