On my way out to Berthem with the dog this morning, I stopped off at Leefdaal’s village church cemetery to pay my respects at two Commonwealth war graves (picture). My better half had told me that they were there. Company Quartermaster Sergeant John Fenwick and Guardsman Charles Albert Vincent Seymour died on 14 May 1940 in a bombardment in nearby Korbeekstraat. Leefdaal is a pleasant, sleepy place and, despite the pill boxes and bunkers out in the surrounding fields, it is difficult to imagine war coming this way. But, thanks to Pathé’s archives, we don’t have to imagine it. At this link there are over four minutes of images of a refugee stream pouring through the village and of burning buildings and of Coldstream Guard Regiment soldiers helping the refugees in various ways. The film was taken on or about 14 May 1940, and I just wonder whether, among all those helpful soldiers, we might just be inadvertently gazing at the last images of John Fenwick and Charles Seymour…