Probably 30 years ago I was asked by Belgian visitors to Talana Museum, if I was aware of the Talana Farm cemetery outside the village of Boezinge in Belgium. At the time I wasn’t, but that started a long journey of research and discovery about this cemetery and its links with the Battle of Talana (20 October 1899). It led to a couple of visits to Belgium to see the cemetery for myself, talk to various people about it, and on 11 November 2014, to being one of the representatives to lay a wreath under the Menin Gate, in memory of the 4 Dundee men commemorated on the walls of that memorial. That evening and the subsequent 10 days at the centenary memorial functions at various cemeteries and memorials in Belgium and then being a guest speaker at an international conference at the Lewarde Mining Museum, on coal mining and the First World War, will remain with me forever.
Menin Gate (Wikipedia)
Pam McFadden at Talana Farm cemetery (Talana Museum)
Talana Farm was one of a group of farm houses named...
