Home Page Haverhill News

Commemorative displays marking the 100th and 75th anniversaries of the start of World Wars One and Two have just been unveiled in the Arts Centre Café by members of Haverhill’s Family History Group.

They feature the life of Haverhill families on both the home and battle Fronts.

The displays include a ‘poppy field’ for members of the public to place their own poppies and alongside are photographs of some of the town’s fallen donated to the group for their Roll of Honour project.

A Haverhill In The Wars exhibition in the adjacent studio will follow and feature:
* stories through WW1 and WW2, of Haverhill people and events;
* exhibits by Coupals, St Felix and Samuel Ward schools;
* household bygones of the time arranged by Mick Taylor;
* period items from Christopher Gurteen’s private collection.

The exhibition will be open daily from 11am to 3pm from Thursday, October 30 to Saturday, November 8 (excluding Sunday and Wednesday).

Entry is free, thanks to the support of Haverhill Town Council and the Haverhill Branch of the Royal British Legion, but donations to the poppy appeal are welcome.

* Haverhill Choral Society and actors from Outspoken Theatre are combining in a programme of words and music to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, on Sunday, November 2, starting at 7.30pm at the Arts Centre.

This will be along the lines of a programme they presented four years ago as part of events to mark the 90th anniversary of the war memorial.

Among the music will be Karl Jenkins' suite from the mass The Armed Man, Elgar's setting of Laurence Binyon's poem For The Fallen, which contains the Remembrance Exhortation, and a variety of pieces ranging from Rachmaninov's Ave Maria to a medly of popular songs from the war.

The society's musical director Jane Wright has composed a choral setting of Siegfried Sassoon's famous poem Everyone Sang, which will be given its premiere and from which the evening takes its title.

The poetry includes the poignant, the beautiful and the visceral from among the great flowering of English poetry which the war engendered, with works by Wilfred Owen, Rudyard Kipling, Edward Thomas and many other favourites.

Tickets are £8 and available from the Arts Centre box office on 01440 714140.