Playing Soldiers - Fortress Wales 2016

Driving around, frantically trying to park. The deep thuds of heavy machine gun fire echoes through the woods. We leave the car in a nearby ASDA and rush towards the action with absolute dread.

Caldicot.

We were late. We thought we missed the World War Two reenactment. Luckily what we heard was the fall of Saigon -Vietnam.

Fortress Wales 2016.

Wiermacht soldiers with Cornish accents chatting away happily whilst in line to buy overpriced burgers and Vikings rearranging their horns in the reflection of their three door Volkswagen Polo are a common sight. I've been to a couple of reenactments before but this was the first one my Girlfriend had ever attended. She is slowly getting in to it all so she needs less persuading these days to come with me to things like this.

Troops capture a man from the future. 

Near the entrance I saw a swastika flag and I made that my first port of call. Enthusiastic volkssturm chewed my ear off for a good twenty minutes without letting me get a word in. All I wanted to do was hold his panzerfaust. (Volkssturm were basically conscripted males between the ages of 16-60 forced to fight as a last ditch attempt at the end of the war).

There were a few German set ups from different parts of the UK dotted around the grounds of Caldicot Castle, the venue of the reenactment. It reminds me a lot of going on a school trip and there are other schools there. You are all there for the same reason, wearing your uniform, but there's always that unspoken rivalry often resulting in aggressive tutting. 

I went there this time with the aim to hold a few of the weapons and have a closer look at them but the majority of the re-enactors weren't keen to let me. Maybe it was for the best. It would probably be like handing over my offspring when they asked for it back.

We made it to the WW2 battle and it was a lot better than expected. A Sherman tank made an appearance and I spotted my mate from the volkssturm, limping away holding his panzerfaust.

Ordering takeout with the lads is always a pain in the arse.

Our journey ended where it began, beneath the toxic green glow of the ASDA sign. My Girlfriend enjoyed her day and didn't need buttering up, so no overpriced burger for her. I dressed up the meal deal and told her it would be romantic if we ate it in the car. It worked. Auf wiedersehen Caldicot.

These guys are slightly more authentic in monochrome.

Just me and a US jeep. Nothing more to say about that.

Welsh Blitz - Cardiff

Cardiff, UK.

The other day I overheard some old guys talking about upcoming Remembrance Sunday where they briefly mentioned how the city was bombed during the war. I always knew that this was a thing as the Germans bombed the port here which shipped out coal and whatever resources that fed the war.

A couple of stray bombs hit the suburbs surrounding the ports so I decided to look online to dig out some pictures of the aftermath and attempt to find the areas today.

Grangetown.

Every city has that one area which is filled with horror stories and bad people. Grangetown is Cardiff's answer to The Bronx, or so i'm told. Seeing that this area was the worst hit by these stray bombs, I decided to go against everyones advice and walk there to find these sites that were hit.

Believing everyone who said that I was going to be robbed, I didn't bother taking my posh camera but settled with just my posh phone instead. With a haircut that questions my sexuality as well as my nationality and my bright coloured coat, I was a bit nervous. I felt like that odd jigsaw piece that you always find in the 'Monopoly' box.

I knew the name of the two streets I was after and awkwardly went into corners to consult Google Maps.

January 2nd, 1941.

Hollymans Bakery, Stockland Street.

An affluent family run business with a cellar which was used as an air raid shelter which when the sirens used to sound to warn of enemy aircraft above, the family used to invite anyone in off the street who was looking for refuge.

Hollymans Bakery, now a hardware store.

The building took a direct hit and the bomb hit the cellar directly. 32 people were killed.

Memorial plaque on the building.

Not far from the bakery, at the corner of Ferry Road is a street that has hardly changed since 1941, apart from the obvious modernisation and repair to the bombed structure. I understand this to have been a residence at the time. Seven people were killed.

1941

2015

So I appear to be a survivor of the dreaded Grangetown. No bother from anyone but the cops who asked me what I was doing as I was awkwardly trying to take pictures with my phone whilst attempting to hide it at the same time.

World War TwoRism - Third Reich Walking Tour, Berlin

2013.  My trip to Berlin was the first time I specifically travelled somewhere for the sole purpose of seeking out key sites from World War 2. If there's not an official name for that kind of travelling, then there should be.

World War TwoRism.

Prior to going, I knew that there was a Third Reich Tour running from outside of Potsdamer Platz and I thought that it would be a great way to get shown around in a few hours and then return to the key sites in the days after properly and spend more time there looking around.

This tour was one of the best things I have ever done. Such an energetic and informative four hours and we covered a lot of ground. The tour guide was a New Zealander called Mike who had a degree in German history and had lived in Germany for over a decade. He really knew his stuff. It was only 12 Euro too.

I put together a bit of a video 'VLOG' of the tour and my return to one of the sites that evening. I tried the VLOG thing out for a few days just to get used to new editing software I was using. I kept this one on my YouTube channel as a bit of a reminder.

Click here for video on YouTube page

Jewish Stumbling Stones - Munich is not a fan

Scattered along the floor of German cities in no real structure, like some elaborate dot-to-dot puzzle, are little brass plaques on the pavements outside the former homes of those murdered or deported by the Nazis. Each one bears the name of a single victim.

These are referred to as 'Stumbling Stones' (Solpersteine) and there are apparently over 50, 000 of these in cities all over Europe claiming to be the largest memorial of any kind in the world.

Munich has a tight ban on these as the elected leader of the cities Jewish community, a Holocaust survivor herself, protests that the victims deserve more than a plaque "in the dust and street dirt". I don't agree with that. There's no disrespect here, just another way to remember those lost.

I think they are great and I cannot go by one without reading it.

Berlin

Cologne

I'd told my brother Andrew to look out for these things as we went along. Here he is  taking a closer look at the first ones we spotted in Cologne.