No flowers grow in Sains-en-Gohelle. The town, the houses and the people are grey. The miners who dig coal from the earth seem to bring some of the earth's blackness and dourness with them when they go home from the pit heads. Through this region, in the Pas-de-Calais, the wallowing armies of World War I swayed back & forth in the mud, and all around are historic names: Arras, Lens, Cambrai, Douai, Vimy Ridge. No flowers grow in Sains, but in season they can be picked from the fields and hedgerows outside, and there are usually some around the wayside crucifix...
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