A team of former Royal Marines marched to the Somme battlefield to pay their own unique tribute to the fallen of the First World War. Hannah Chapman spoke to yomp leader, Christiaan Creaby

AS the sun went down over the rolling countryside of northern France on Friday, July 1, it would have been understandable for the Somme Yomp team to feel pleased with their achievement.

Having walked 650 miles in just 23 days carrying 30lb packs, the group then set about planting 19,240 small, wooden crosses in a narrow patch of weathered farmland.

Knocking the crosses in – one for every man who died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, exactly 100 years earlier - took more than 14 hours; much longer than the German guns spent doing their business on that bloody day.

And as the light faded, the yompers, all former Royal Marines, stood to attention, saluting the lost men from a past generation.

It was the end of their challenge, months in the planning, so were they happy to have seen it through to that poignant moment?

“I just felt sad,” says Christiaan. “The emotion was more like “what has gone on here?” It didn’t make sense.

“You couldn’t believe that at this spot, 100 years earlier, there was this carnage going on.

“It was extremely humbling - something that will stay with us for the rest of our lives.”

Christiaan, who runs a military fitness business in Masham, North Yorkshire, Michael Anderson and Mark Warrener made up the Somme Yomp team.

Mark started the trek in Liverpool, and Christiaan and Michael set off from Grimsby. All three met up in Sheffield before continuing south.

Their aim was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme by marching through as many towns and cities as possible which raised Pals battalions – groups of friends and family who heeded Kitchener’s call to arms.

One leg was dedicated to the memory of their friend and comrade Marine Jonathan Crookes, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010, and on other stints, they were joined by well-wishers and school pupils carrying poppy wreaths.

The yomp culminated with the planting of the 19,240 crosses. While each cross symbolised a soldier killed on July 1, 2016, they also bore a name of a specific First World War veteran. These dedications were made by school children, friends, and people they met along the way, and came with donations. About £13,000 has been raised for the Royal British Legion so far.

Bettina Bell, director of Northallerton retailer Lewis and Cooper, which sponsored the yomp, travelled to France to help with the planting, as did a small band of friends and supporters.

The patch of land, just outside Serre, was chosen carefully.

The village has become synonymous with the sacrifice of many of the Pals. The fighting around Serre saw huge losses among the Sheffield and Accrington Pals, as well as the Leeds Pals, who trained at Colsterdale in the Yorkshire Dales. A memorial to their bravery stands just outside Masham.

“We wanted to be in the area where the Leeds Pals were,” says Christiaan. “It was more or less where they died.”

He visited the landowner months ago to get permission.

“He got it straight away and it was in the exact location where the killing went on.”

Christiaan says that it is only now that some of the stories they heard on their journey are beginning to sink in.

“We had a lot of people coming up to us and wanting to tell us their stories of their great-great granddad, or whoever, which was really nice,” he says.

“At the time you don’t really take it in, but now we are starting to process it.

“There were the stories of “lad goes off to war and doesn’t come back”, but there were also stories of those who did come back – and a lot involved suicide. One woman had five sons at war, and they all came home, but because she was under so much stress, she took her own life.”

Christiaan has gone into schools to give talks about the yomp, and says most children want to make sure the war dead are remembered.

“They want to learn about it. They want to find out their own story,” he says.

He then adds: “I always try to be as honest as possible with them. There’s no glory with war. It’s about killing people, when it comes down to it. People die.”

And that, perhaps, is the lasting message of events like the Somme Yomp – involving young people in remembering those who died, and making sure the horror of war is never forgotten in the hope that such a catastrophe can never happen again.

Christiaan says: “I tell them, whatever you go into when you’re older, don’t let your generation go to war. Otherwise it will be damned, like the generation in the First World War. All they are remembered for is killing each other.”

*To make a donation, go to www.justgiving.com/thesommeyomp