3. Poperinge

1 – 2 hours

Reverse the route just travelled and head for Poperinge. Follow the signs for the centre. Once in the central square, there is space for a coach to drop off and pick up outside the church.

The Town …and Ginger!

With the Town Hall at your back, walk into the central square (Grote Markt). Keep walking down the street. You will pass a pharmacy on your left (one location of Skindles officers’ café during the war) and on the opposite side of the road will be the Hotel Belfort. Keep walking until you come to La Poupée. Stop outside here.

Context

Poperinge’s light side.

Spiel

Poperinge (spelt Poperinge in 1914) or ‘Pop’ was the epicentre for Tommy rest and recuperation for those in the Salient. It is eight miles to the west of Ypres and was largely (though not entirely!) out of the range of the German guns. Therefore, vital supplies were stored and/or travelled through here on the way to the front. More importantly, this was where soldiers heading out of the Salient could come to feel alive again.

It is estimated that at its height there were up to 250,000 allied personnel passing through here over a short period of time. The entrepreneurial spirit was at its height; young men, with money, not knowing what future they have, are always good customers given the right sort of enterprises. Thus, officers clubs, saloons, illicit gambling and prostitution (not illicit!) quickly established themselves.

One of the most infamous cafés was ‘La Poupée’; its notoriety was built upon the attractions of a particular young lady. Writing in his diaries, Captain Edwin Campion Vaughan gives us a glimpse:

‘Our next visit was to a café in the square – La Poupée. The two rooms were full of diners but we found a table in the glass-roofed garden. A sweet little sixteen-year-old girl came to serve us. I fell a victim at once to her long red hair and flashing smile. When I asked her her name, she replied ‘Gingair’in such a glib way that we both gave a burst of laughter. We had a splendid dinner, with several bottles of bubbly, and Ginger hovered delightfully about us. Over our cigars and liqueurs I offered her my heart, which she gravely accepted.’¹⁶

We will hear more from Vaughan later. However, not all the men wanted such carnal pleasure.

Head down Gasthuisstraat (the road with Spar on it). Walk for five minutes and you will come to ‘Toc H’/Talbot House.