The Hampstead Pals, revealed 30 years on!

Commisioner Sir John Stevens with DAC John Grieve and Jon Nicholls at the Arras Memorial 2002

Commissioner Sir John Stephens, DAC John Grieve CBE and Jon Nicholls at the Arras Memorial to the Missing, May 2002

Arras, Cambrai, Somme, Ypres, Verdun, Mons, Loos & beyond

  • Private Remembrance Pilgrimages to the Western Front of 1914-18
  • Executive travel, accommodation & unique hospitality in the company of ‘real people’

Welcome to the Hampstead Pals website!

“At last, by your demand, modern technology has dictated that there should be at last, an ‘official’ website which would explain who we are, after many people have wondered who was responsible for leaving ‘Hampstead Pals’ wreaths and poppy crosses over the old Western Front for the last 30 years. (Not to mention being the main cause of several small estaminets running dry)

A Duty Done

A Duty Done. Charles Pope VC. Metropolitan Police & Australian Infantry. KIA. 15 April 1917

The battle for the moment being comparatively quiet, I turned my attention to burying and went out all day till the evening with our Divisional Burial officer and a large party, collecting and burying the dead. It is piteous work, this collecting of the dead and committing their poor bodies to earth. I buried about seventy of our lads today – such fine looking fellows and many of them so young.

Oh! what a debt England will owe to these lads when the war is over and we can settle down to enjoy the peace they have won for us by the sacrifice – yes, by the Cheerful Sacrifice of their young bodies.”

Capt. The Rev. Julian Bickersteth, Senior Chaplain 56th (London) Division. (Letter home, 1 September 1918)

The Arras Memorial to The Missing

The Arras Memorial to The Missing

In the words of Guy Chapman;

“One wonders how long such a book as Vain Glory will have meaning and what it will mean to a generation which has never heard of Hannescamps, Tower Hamlets, Vimy Ridge, Happy Valley, The Brickstacks and the rest.”

Hampstead Pals is a site for people to enjoy and contribute to.  If you are interested in this site and would like to leave a message for everyone to see, please click here. If you would like to get in touch with The Hampstead Pals, please use the form on this site.