James Holland

Chouin is one of the most beautiful villages in Normandy.

It's absolutely gorgeous.

Again, there's various orchards and stuff, and they're camped in an orchard, and nearby is a medium regiment of 5.5s.

When Semkin is told he's got to get up again, they're alerted and saying, actually, you know...

our rest period's cancelled, we're going to have to go and do something.

Then it's called off again.

Everyone's tired.

And Skinner's been kind of hurtling around, burying people, going back to the coast to kind of check on surprises and welcoming new men and all the rest of it.

Because he's playing this sort of pastoral role as well as the actual priest.

And he writes in his diary, Nightmare of that year.

Meanwhile, A squadron has been stood down again.

And so they've gone back to sleep.

And those medium guns are firing throughout the night.

And Semkin sleeps through 14 hours straight despite these guns firing.

And I remember him telling me this.

He said, I never heard a single one.

And he didn't get up till 4.30 the following afternoon.

Yeah.

And he spends an hour getting food, another hour washing, shaving, dressing in fresh clothes, and then kind of, you know, writing letters, whatever.

Yeah, yeah, completely, completely.