A key aim of the Remembrance Image Project is to encourage others to share their own pictures of WW1 sites, so that the work becomes not just my own images, but a dialogue in pictures between a variety of people visiting and reflecting on places associated with the conflict.

It’s one of the points I always stress when I am speaking publicly about the project, and I did so again at a recent talk I have to the Bedford County Women’s Institute. And as if to reassure me that this approach does work, a few weeks later I was contacted by Valerie Mullins.

In fact, Valerie was not at the Bedford WI meeting, but a friend and fellow photographer was and mentioned the project to Valerie. As it happens, Valerie had recently returned from a visit to the battlefields organised by Leger, and she kindly took the time to contact me and share some of her pictures. With her permission, I am reproducing some of them here.

Valerie explained to me that she had always wanted to visit the battlefields, and found her trip both informative and thought-provoking. The fact that it coincided with the centenary meant that it held an additional layer of meaning. The pictures which she was most satisfied with were the ones of the German cemeteries; as she modestly told me, “I am not a great photographer, but the images of the German cemeteries I will remember for the rest of my life”.

My thanks to Valerie for taking the time to contact me and share both her impressions of the battlefields, and some of her photographs.