Worksop: Tickets now on sale for British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance

Tickets are now on sale for the Worksop Branch of the British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance.

The festival will take place at North Notts Community Arena in Worksop on Saturday, 25th October with doors opening from 6.30pm, ready for a 7pm start.

“The festival will remember the fallen men and servicewomen of not just of the two world wars but all subsequent conflicts the British Armed Forces will have been, or are still, involved with,” said Elaine Hopkinson, regional fund-raiser for the Legion in the East Midlands.

“We will also use the event to launch the 2014 Poppy Appeal and promote the work of the Royal British Legion in Worksop and raise funds for the Legion.”

The Worksop Branch of the Legion is under threat of closure but the Guardian is leading a campaign to help prevent this.

Good community support for events like the Festival of Remembrance will also help this cause.

Tickets are £6.50 for adults, £4 for under-16s and £15 for a family ticket (two adults and two children).

Tickets are available from North Notts Arena on Eastgate, The Crossing Church and Centre on Newcastle Avenue, by calling 0774 9421699 or emailing [email protected]

As part of the commemoration of the start of The Great War, legion members are organising two Trent the Trenches memorial tours at 2pm on 4th October and 10am on 11th October, both leaving from St Anne’s Church on Newcastle Avenue in Worksop.

After viewing the church and its fine Western War Memorial Window, the Wayside Cross and the private memorials, the tour will move St Winifred’s Church at Holbeck completed during the war and containing a stone from the severely damaged cathedral of Ypres, the Belgian town so familiar to many British soldiers during the war.

In its grounds are the graves of the anti-war MP Philip Morrell and his wife Lady Ottoline Morrell with the headstone inscriptions carved by Eric Gill.

The War Memorial chapel at Worksop Priory will be featured along with the Worksop Cenotaph and other Worksop memorials before moving on to Blyth to view the Barnby Memorial Hall and the proposed site for the Blyth gun.

The tour will then move on to Retford, past RAF East Retford and into the town centre to view the War Memorial and the Memorial to the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry in St Swithin’s Church, together with the private Five’s Court Memorial in the grounds of the old Grammar School.

A return will then be made to the start point through Clumber Park when it is hoped to visit the Hardwick Memorial and the Church Memorial at Cuckney.

The tour will be guided by local history enthusiast and Western Front Association member Robert Ilett.

The tour will be by minibus and tickets costing £5 will be available at Worksop library but can also be pre-booked through Robert Ilett on 01777 869051 or [email protected]

Meanwhile, the next meeting of the WW1 Commemorations Committee will next Thursday (4th September) at 7pm at 17 Shireoaks Row, Shireoaks.