Today, probably by the time you read this, the Queen Mary 2 will arrive in Southampton with a special cargo — one bag with a little bit of Flanders, as in Flanders Field. It’s soil that will be used to create a Flanders Field Memorial Garden in England (Flanders is in 
Belgium).
The idea is for memorial gardens at The Guards Museum in London to have soil from every battlefield where British soldiers from seven regiments died in World War I. For decades, soil was never allowed to leave the battlefield cemeteries. That changed last year. School children collected 70 sandbags full of soil.
Still with us?
The Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Laurent of Belgium attended a ceremony last November when all the sandbags were gathered, placed on a frigate and taken up the Thames, then moved onto a gun carriage for the trip — with a mounted escort — to Wellington Barracks, home of the Flanders Field Memorial Garden, which will be opened by Queen Elizabeth next month.
Did we miss something?
This is a touching story with a lot of “moving” parts, but if 69 bags of soil were transported to the museum (below) last November, what happened to the 70th? Did somebody leave one behind? The most historic words at Flanders Field are “Lest we forget.”
Honoring men who gave their lives in the fight for freedom should never be forgotten, but if somebody did forget bag 70, why would it take almost a year?
This is 100 years from the start of the “war to end all wars” and any reason to re-visit it is noble, but when bag 70 did make the trip across the channel was an enormous cruise ship necessary? How big is this bag?
Yes, yes…of course we know the answers. They have something to do with the British pomp and pageantry.
Today at portsandbows.com: Who’s offering what for CLIA Cruise Week
Norwegian Pearl
4 nights
November 4, 2014
Miami (return): Grand Bahamas, Nassau
Inside: $149
Cost per day: $37
www.ncl.com