Some Corner of a Foreign Field/That is Forever Ambridge: The Archers as a Lieu de Memoire of the First World War in Britain

Abstract

The history of the memory and commemoration of the First World War in British culture has long been the subject of academic debate. In particular, numerous studies have explored the significance of place, both local and national, to the creation and continuity of commemorative practices across the past 100 years. The current years of the centenary provide a particularly useful point of reference for exploring the development of cultural memory of the First World War in Britain, while the village of Ambridge forms a unique case study of local and national commemorative practices.

This chapter examines two forms of commemoration represented in The Archers, the episodic marking of Remembrance Sunday across a 30-year period from 1996 to the present, and the community’s engagement with national commemorative events in the centenary year 2014. It locates both these forms of commemoration in Nora’s (1996) concept of lieux de memoire, the key symbolic elements of community memorial heritage, and Hobsbawm’s (1983) definitions of invented traditions as those which are imposed upon communities rather than emerging organically from them. In doing so it argues that place functions as the key element of Ambridge’s role as a lieu de memoire of the war, in contrast to people whose stories appear as invented traditions, particularly in 2014. It concludes that the programme ultimately maintains its ability to function as a lieu de memoire across the period, not only for the community of Ambridge, but also for the wider national community of Archers listeners.

Citation

Meyer, J. (2017), "Some Corner of a Foreign Field/That is Forever Ambridge: The Archers as a Lieu de Memoire of the First World War in Britain", Courage, C. and Headlam, N. (Ed.) Custard, Culverts and Cake, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 231-246. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78743-285-720171022