The BBC News website is carrying a report from Germany. It states that a man believed to be the last German veteran of the Western Front has died.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7210346.stm

The phrase "believed to be" is important because Germany has no records of its veterans. As the article points out this is due to the country's 20th century history and it's role in the two world wars.

Whatever else this passing marks another sure step toward the War ceasing to be memory and becoming History. The people who were there are disappearing and we must seek other ways to explore, understand and commemorate the events. We are trying to show how archaeology can do this.

We say commemorate and mean it: whether German or Belgian or Indian or whoever the War was a tradgedy that has effects at national and personal levels that can still be felt today. To commemorate the War is not to glorify it or celebrate national triumph, rather it is to mark an event that still has resonance today. Above all we remember that we are all people.

TV

Readers lucky enough to receive UK TV channel 5 might want to make a date in their diaries to be out tomorrow.

At 19:15 tomorrow (Tuesday) 5 will be starting a re-run of the series "Trench Detectives" which was their edited version of "Finding the Fallen". The series concentrates on our group No Man's Land and our work on five archaeological projects from the Western Front, including Serre, Loos and Beaumont Hamel.

Actually the series gives a fair idea of the process involved in excavating sites of this type and in the backstories one can uncover about individuals whose bodies and possessions are uncovered on the battlefields.

A number of the team who will be out at Plug Street are featured in the programmes, including a bizarre moment of Jon and Martin singing a Baptist hymn.