Villers-Bretonneux, the war

that made it a name so many became familiar with and the people involved are on my mind this morning.
An acquaintance of mine is there this morning. He has taken over the annual pilgrimage from his father, now too old and frail to travel. His wife has gone with him this time.
This remarkable family has sent someone back every year. It isn't something the rest of the world knows about. For them it is a personal, private matter. 
They actually go and stay in a smaller place not far from there - "the village where my great-grandfather's friend came from". They have maintained a contact for the last one hundred years.
I found out about this journey  because J....took some rosemary from our garden several years ago. His wife told me why they wanted it when she asked for it.
There is nothing heroic about the story. It is simply a story of two men who met in the midst of a war that neither of them wished to be involved in - and who remained friends for the rest of their lives. Their families carried on the contact. The English speakers made the effort to learn French and the French speakers made the effort to learn English. Perhaps that came about because both men were teachers and there have been more generations of teachers in their families. J....says his accent is appalling but a native French speaker I know tells me, "It is not good but much better than most I know."
And J... and his brother L... and sister S..... saw to it that their children have French second names and those children have carried on that tradition because they wished to do so. All of them have made it their business to learn French.
The generation growing up now was perhaps a little less interested until recently. There is a renewed interest in learning French. One of the girls, the granddaughter of J's cousin, did an exchange year in that far off place. She came back here - and then went back again. After university here she went back for a third time.
Next week she will marry there, marry the great-grandson (or great-great grandson?) of her great grandfather's friend.  I am not quite sure what the relationships are.
It will have taken a little more than a hundred years to happen but J.... told me,
     "I think my great-grandfather and his friend would be very happy to be one family at last."