Lottery Grant Commemorates Wiltshire's WWII History
17.02.2008 00:01:00
A three-day event marking the role of the Kennet Valley and Salisbury Plain area in WWII is to take place in May with the help of a lottery grant of £9,985. The project is one of four in the Wiltshire area and 64 in the South West to share £450,211 in the latest round of the Lottery’s Awards for All programme announced today.
To mark its 40th anniversary the Kennet Valley Area of the Military Vehicle Trust (MVT) will use the £10,000 award to hold a WWII historic convoy and reenactment event over the May Bank Holiday weekend, which will commemorate the Allied Force’s route to victory.
Based in Ramsbury, the event will observe the role the area played in Operation Market Garden and D-Day with two themed, historic vehicle convoy days, US Airborne Day and British Airborne and 30 Corps Day, culminating in a public day on Bank Holiday Monday. Each of the convoys will visit local sites that saw US and UK troop activity and will end with 1940s dances, fashion show, and a wartime searchlight display.
Once in the showfield, there will be artillery and spectacular aerial displays as well as a parachute drop from a Dakota by the Royal Artillery Parachute Display Team dressed in wartime uniform. The event will close with a final parade ending in an inspection by veterans from the operation.
Veterans from the divisions that took part will also be sharing their stories at Ramsbury Memorial Hall, converted into ‘Ramsbury at War Museum’ for the day, which is the focus of a number of displays of historic reference material.
Keith Brigstoke, event organiser for the Kennet Valley Area of the MVT, said: “This is all about telling a part of the Operation Market Garden story that doesn’t get told: the improvised but close cooperation of British and American troops in defeating the enemy together in Holland. This three-day event is about paying homage to the efforts of those troops in what will be a spectacular event for everyone to enjoy.”
Also benefiting from a grant of £8,500 is the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust, which was formed to protect, enhance and promote the waterway that stretches from Reading to Bristol. The Devizes-based charity is using the grant to start a digital photographic archive, Picture the Past.
Warren Berry, Kennet and Avon Canal Trust Museum Curator, said: “We are unique in having an enormous photographic archive of the canal, with some 3-4,000 photographs recording its history. We get so many requests for copies by researchers and for use in postcards, magazines and displays, that the originals are likely to get damaged. With the grant, we can instead buy computer equipment and digitise the archive to ensure the collection is, like the newly-restored canal, preserved for the enjoyment of future generations.”
Other grants in the area are: £10,000 to Yatton Keynell Recreation Association, who will be able to provide a 'Trim Trail' in the recreation grounds for the local community, and £5,263 to Home and School Association of Highbury Primary School, Salisbury to involve the whole community in a project to produce an exhibition that catalogues the lives of school children past and present.
Awards for All is the small grants scheme administered by the Big Lottery Fund on behalf of Lottery good cause funders, Arts Council England, Big Lottery Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund and Sport England. The scheme makes awards of between £300 and £10,000 to grass-roots community groups and voluntary organisations.
Mark Cotton, Big Lottery Fund Head of Region for the South West, said on behalf of the Awards for All funders: “Sharing over £338,000 with so many community groups in the South West is a fantastic way to start of a new year. Awards for All is delighted to help groups bring communities together and encourage interest in local history.”
For a full list of award recipients visit:
http://www.awardsforall.org.uk/england/news.html
ENDS
Client name: The Big Lottery Fund
Web link: http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/
