My Grandmother and Mum have always wanted to visit the grave of our Aussie relative (from Singleton, NSW) who died during World War One. Joseph Morris joined the 5th Australian Pioneers on the 27th of May 1915, was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal on the 6th of October 1917 and was killed in action on the 2nd of December 1917 aged 26. The following text explains the justification for Moris' DCM and is taken from the London Gazette dated 19th of November 1917 and the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette dated 27th of June 1918 - "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty as one of a party detailed to remove a dump of shells outside a burning building. About seventy shells were removed and thereby a large explosion prevented".We booked the Eurostar to Lille and met up with our tour guide - Florent Denaghel who took us to the picturesque graveyard of La Plus Douve Farm near Ypres. Joseph Morris is buried next to his friend George Crowhurst who died on the same day. We brought two Australian flags with us and it was a pretty moving experience to see my Grandmother of 87 proudly placing the flags on the two graves.
We took the opportunity to take a guided tour of the battlefields, where we saw an old trench, the site of the Christmas Truce, Lone Tree Crater, Menin Gate, Polygon Wood and the Fifth Australian Division Memorial.
We stayed the night at the SuiteHotel before exploring the sights of Lille. Favourites included the most intricate cake shop any of us had ever seen and an amazing praline hot chocolate:
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