This was Lincoln and North Lincolnshire's first big project and was our chance to demonstrate our commitment to our branch vision of Educate and Commemorate. Our branch has been running for a full year now with 109 members and we wanted to hold an event which included an education event as well as rededicate a local memorial which the members decided to adopt.
Educate Day
This first section covers the Educate Day which was held at Hillcrest Community Infant and Nursery School, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. Our branch secretary is Headteacher of this school and offered to link an Education Day to the Re-dedication Ceremony and make a weekend of the event. Hillcrest School is a good and outstanding school (OFSTED - Oct 2009). The school likes to break the traditional boundaries which are often perceived that young children should receive a safe and restricted curriculum and has won a national award called the GO4it award last year to recognise the practical learning days it offers to its pupils. Our First World War day was planned to give our pupils a small taste of life during the Great War and to understand why they wore poppies in remembrance. Members of our branch generously gave their time, brought along artefacts to enhance the day and came along to join in the experience.
Small children learn from first hand practical play experience and we were able to give our children the ultimate first hand experience by inviting the Khaki Chums led by Taff Gillingham to bring their expertise to the day. Staff and pupils dressed up and the whole school became a place for the day where the Great War history came alive.
The children had their own ID soldiers' cards which they had been getting ready in the week where they had drawn their photo and put their finger prints on. After the first assembly of the day, they then had to take part in six Great War themed activities and get their training cards stamped as they completed each activity. The first activity was Drilling and Marching led by the Khaki Chums who used our playground to great effect. All the children took part, even the three year olds, and the whole school was soon full of marching children shouting, "Left, right, left right!!" They certainly found out how tough marching can be as there were a few complaints of tired legs at the end of the day. The Khaki Chums took great care to explain things at our pupil's level and they enjoyed themselves just as much as our children.
A trench was built outside using fence panels and old tables and filled with real trench artefacts and even smoke from a smoke machine!! It was very interesting for our pupils to be crammed in a confined space in the open air with real trench finds and they learnt so much more than sitting in a classroom.
Investigating life in a trench
One classroom was transformed into a Casualty Clearing station complete with tented ceiling and weak tea for shock. Another room was turned into a museum with our branch members on hand to talk about the artefacts they had brought along for the day including Lewis Guns and machine guns. The children copied medals and carried out observational drawing of the artefacts.
A third classroom was turned into a poppy making factory and the children made poppies to which were to be placed on two wreaths. One wreath was to be laid the next day on behalf of the school at the Commemorate Day at Thorpe Le Fallows and the other wreath will be laid on the Somme, at Caterpillar Wood Cemetery, where our pupils have adopted two unknown soldiers. It was important that we had the remembrance aspect of the day so we were encouraging our children not only to have an element of learning about the war but also an element of learning of the importance of remembrance of the sacrifice that was made and the need to respect this. The last activity was a reconstruction through drama and sport of the Christmas Truce.
The day was rounded off by a whole school assembly where all our visitors joined us where the day was reviewed, the day's learning was tested and songs from the Great War sung. A silence led by our Chairman, Mick McDonald, rounded off what was a wonderful learning experience for our pupils.
Please don't let the age of your pupils put you off studying the Great War as the earlier our young children are introduced to the Great War, the more they will want to find out and respect the memories.
Julie McDonald BEd NPQH
Headteacher, Hillcrest Community Infant and Nursery School
Secretary, Lincoln and North Lincolnshire Branch, WFA
Rededication of Thorpe Cross
Saturday, 15 May was a bright, warm and blustery day and provided the ideal weather for the Lincoln and North Lincolnshire Branch to celebrate the rededication of the long forgotten Thorpe Cross at Thorpe Le Fallows north of Lincoln.
The Thorpe Cross was erected in 1919 and Commemorates eight men of the locality who died in the Great War and latterly one man from the second war. As the cross stands in a bleak and lonely setting it unfortunately fell into disrepair and suffered from vandalism.
In the early 1970s a retired Methodist Minister, Fred Bradshaw, single handedly cleaned and restored the cross but in the ensuing 40 years, the cross once again suffered from neglect and became totally overgrown.
In Autumn 2009, the newly formed Lincoln and North Lincolnshire Branch of the WFA adopted the cross as a branch project to restore it to its former glory. The idea came about after a branch visit to the cross led by Mick Credland, who had known about the cross for some 15 years and had always wanted to see it restored.
Branch chairman, Mick McDonald was instrumental in tracing the landowner on whose land the cross stood. Limestone Farming Ltd proved to be most helpful and readily agreed to the branch having access on foot to the cross to carry out the restoration works and have also agreed to allow the branch to hold up to two ceremonies at the site each year.
The Lincolnshire Co-Operative Society's stonemasons readily agreed to provide the specialist knowledge and skills required to clean and restore the cross and thus it was on 15 May that some 70 branch members and guests including the Khaki Chums and representatives from the RBL, the Co-Op, The Lincolnshire Regiment, The Lincolnshire Ex-Servicemans Assoc., Hillcrest School and the Local Authority assembled at the site of the cross for a most moving rededication service led by The Rev Phillip Wain. Mick Credland and Fred Bradshaw's granddaughter, Joanne, unveiled the cross to reveal it in all its splendour.
The highlight of the service, which made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, was a flypast at very low altitude by a replica DH2 waggling its wings in salute. I don't believe that any one present will ever forget that moment.
Following the service, a lunch was held for all present at Sturton By Stow village hall where an exhbition of WW1 artefacts was on display as well as a presentation of the background and service records of the nine men remembered on the cross.
- Lt R A Preston 70 sdn RFC died 1916
- Cpl A E Goddard 2/4 Bn Lincolnshire Rgt died 1918
- L/Cpl G Bradley 2 Bn Lincolnshire Rgt died 1918
- Pte F Baldock 2 Bn Grenadier Guards died 1918
- Pte F S Burkitt 2/6 Bn Sherwood Foresters died 1917
- Pte J T Jackson 2/7 Bn Lancashire Fusiliers died 1918
- Pte W Martin 1/5 Bn Lincolnshire Rgt died 1918
- Pte H Sanderson 1/5 Bn The Border Rgt died 1917
- Pte J Clayton 6 Bn Lincolnshire Rgt died 1944
Jonathan D'Hooghe
Lincoln and North Lincolnshire Branch, WFA Branch Publicity Officer
Photos courtesy and copyright Chris Goddard
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