Beneath the trees, a trench cuts through the Wiltshire soil. Sheet metal and netting cover the ground. The air is thick with the acrid scent of powder smoke.
At the edge of the woods stands Tim Richardson, Sergeant Major at the Minden outpost. On his wrist, his watch bears a distinctive steel crosshatch — a shrapnel guard.
In the 1970s, Richardson served as a senior aircraftsman at RAF Akrotiri. He has been part of Chalke History Festival for fourteen years.
“I can do the shouting and I look the part. But it’s more than just fun — it’s education with an edge,” he says.
The men running the exhibit are a blend of military veterans, police officers, and history enthusiasts. Some teach the subject professionally; all wear their uniforms as if they were their own.
“I think it’s a really exciting way to experience history,” says Richardson.
“Everyone here — this is the top end of living history in the UK. People are getting the best, and they’re getting the facts.”
The motto of Richardson’s former unit, the RAF Air Movements Squadron, is Transgredientur Multi — Many shall pass through.
This week, so did 1,400 schoolchildren, who filed through the living history trench as part of the festival’s education programme.
“The schools programme is incredibly important,” Richardson explains.
“You’ve got state schools coming through and you’ve got Marlborough College — they all get treated the same, and they all have just as much fun. They come out afterwards giggling and hooting as they head down the hill.”
Leading us through the woods is Private Kai Mitchell, a STEN Mk II submachine gun slung across his chest. He halts us abruptly.
Half-buried in the dirt, the metal prongs of a German S-mine poke above the earth. “That’s a Bouncing Betty,” Mitchell says.
“If it were dark, or you weren’t paying attention, you’d have stepped on that.”
The reality sinks in. We would have stepped on that. There would have been nothing we could have done.
“When these went off, they shot up into the air and detonated,” Mitchell explains, now holding the S-mine aloft.
“Men would lose their bottom half — legs, and… the other important bits down there.”
No visitor — student or otherwise — passes through this trench without becoming a part of it.
“There’s nothing quite like it,” says Richardson.
“This is what living history is about. You’re not just looking at it as a spectator. You’re hearing it, you’re tasting it, you’re living it.”
Ahead, a rusted shed of corrugated metal stands like a relic. Inside, we learn about latrine buckets and wartime countersigns — ‘Flash’ and ‘Thunder’, or ‘Wendy House’ — once used by British infantry on the front lines.
“The Germans struggled to pronounce their W’s, and ‘house’ sounded different too,” Mitchell explains.
I mouth haus under my breath and smile.
In the trench, we meet Ruben Edwards, 16 years old — but here, a Lieutenant in the North-Rhine Westphalia campaign. A Webley Mk VI revolver rests in his hand, its barrel chipped with age.
“Walking through the trench, they can smell it, they can hear it — and they can bloody well hear us shouting at them,” Edwards says.
“They really live the experience.”
His face is streaked with mud, and a battered white enamel mug hangs from his kit.
“They’ll come away with a sense of what it was really like to be a soldier in the Ox and Bucks at Minden in 1945.”
The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry served in some of the most brutal theatres of war — France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Tunisia.
In 1945, men of the 1st Battalion fought and died at Ibbenbüren, just 50 miles from Minden. The River Weser cuts through Minden on the map, just as this trench cuts through the Wiltshire earth.
The Ox and Bucks saw action in Dauelsen and Wehldorf before capturing Hamburg — just five days before Victory in Europe Day, May 8th, 1945.
A burst of simulated German sniper fire cracks through the trees, interrupting our questions and their answers. The instinct to dive for cover creeps up the spine.
Further along, Edwards and Mitchell operate an Ordnance SBML two-inch mortar with unnerving realism. It thuds behind the sandbags.
“I’ll never get tired of that smell,” admits Mitchell.
The scent of burnt powder fills the trench — acrid, raw, unmistakably real.
“The primary school kids love it. They shout and scream the whole way through,” laughs Edwards.
“The secondary lot act cool at first, but once the shouting starts and the gunfire kicks off, they’re all ducking down, properly engaged.”
Next year, Ruben plans to study history at sixth form, focusing on the first half of the 20th century, with World War Two his chosen speciality.
At Chalke History Festival, the stories of those who served are not only remembered — they are understood.
“I’m from Weymouth,” Ruben tells us.
“There are three cenotaphs along the beach, each filled with names. Those names should never be forgotten.”
Read more on Salisbury Journal
