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| 19 Sep 2025 | |
| Old Scholar |
On the 7 July 1917, a dinner was organised in the shell-shattered French city of Amiens on the Somme battlefield, when old boys from St Peter's College and Prince Alfred College came together for a celebratory dinner. On this very same date in 2026, again in Amiens and enjoying the same menu, old boys from the two schools will once more come together to remember their schools’ sacrifice and enjoy a meal together, just as they did over 100 years ago.
This occasion will be part of an extensive, specially organised SPC-PAC battlefield tour, travelling first to Gallipoli, then to the Australian operational areas on the Western Front in France and Belgium and finishing with a four-day (optional) tour of the Normandy D-Day landing beaches.
Accommodation will be in first-class hotels where possible, travel will be by luxury Mercedes coach and the tour historian will be bestselling author and battlefield guide, Dr Will Davies.
On the Turkish leg, there will be a day tour of Istanbul before the trip to Gallipoli where we will tour Anzac Cove including Lone Pine, Quinn’s Post, the Nek and Chunuk Bair along with the British beaches at Helles and Suvla Bay, returning via the ancient, ruined city of Troy to Istanbul and a dinner cruise on the Bosporus.
We will then fly to Paris and after a Paris tour, head by luxury coach to Epernay to visit a champagne house before continuing on to Ypres in Belgium. While here we will visit Messines, Hill 60, (the site of the massive underground explosions in June 1917), the Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Passchendaele and attend the nightly Menin Gate service.
Photo: Beautiful Bruges at night
While also in Ypres, we will spend a day visiting the beautiful Belgium town of Bruges, famous in films and for chocolate and lacework. We will then head south into France, stopping at Fromelles, the site of Australia’s disastrous first engagement that saw our casualties reach 5,500 in a 24-hour battle. Heading south we will stop off at the Canadian Vimy Ridge Memorial and the battlefield at Bullecourt before checking into our hotel in the Somme.
In the next three to four days, we will visit the battlefields at Thiepval, Beaumont Hamel, Pozieres and Gueudecourt where we will have a solemn leaf burning ceremony in the AIF Grass Lane Cemetery. We will visit the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneau, the Sir John Monash Centre and the Victoria School. We will also stop off at Le Hamel, the crash site of the Red Baron (shot down by Australians) and other significant locations.
Photo: Australians in the streets of Peronne, 1918
On our return to Paris, we will stop off at Mont St Quentin and Péronne, the Hindenburg Line battles and the St Quentin Canal, before returning to our Paris hotel.
Photo: German heavy coastal artillery at Longues-sur-Mer
As an extension tour for those interested, we will then spend four days on the Normandy D-Day beaches, made famous in the film, The Longest Day and where many fortifications and reminders of the battles remain.
Once back in Paris, guests are welcome to stay on or return to Adelaide.
The proposed dates of the tour are, ex Adelaide on Wednesday 24 June and returning to Adelaide on Thursday 16th July.
There will be a maximum of forty guests, ideally ten couples from each school.
Costs have yet to be finalised, but the Gallipoli and Western Front tours would be about A$7,000 per person twin/double and $1500 single supplement. The extension tour to Normandy would be about A$3,000 and single share A$1,100. This does not included airfares, travel insurance and some meals and drinks.
For further information, please contact the tour organiser, Dr Will Davies on email will@willdavies.net.au or 0411 725 847.
This tour is not being organised by the School or the St Peter's Old Collegians Association. All enquiries are to directed to the independent tour organiser.
About Dr Will Davies
Will Davies left Trinity Grammar in Sydney in 1967 after six years as a boarder in School House. Following his graduation from the ANU in 1971, he began his career as a production assistant at the Commonwealth Film Unit. He then spent the next 37 years as a senior independent producer of documentaries for the ABC and SBS with his company Look Films Pty Ltd. His films included the four-hour series When the War Came to Australia (ABC Television) and fifty half hour episodes of Tales from a Suitcase for SBS. He also produced Our Century; 25 half hour episodes with Ray Martin for Channel Nine.
He began writing books in the early 2000s and to date has had twelve books published (mainly by Penguin Random House) including Somme Mud, Beneath Hill 60, The Boy Colonel, The Last 100 Days and Secret and Special. In 2010 he began leading battlefield tours of the Western Front and Normandy and after 2015, tours of Gallipoli. He was on the NSW Centenary of Anzac Advisory Council and is currently working on a project at Tuggeranong Homestead and a memorial project for the fallen tunnellers in Charters Towers.