Kirkby Lonsdale Celebrates VE Day

Lunesdale Hall Committee have organised two events to help Kirkby Lonsdale celebrate VE Day.

On Thursday, 8 May a Beacon will be lit on the playfield at 9pm. There will be food, drink and music available (courtesy of Little Barn). The festivities start at 8pm.

On Saturday, 10 May there will be afternoon tea and the premiere of the new film by local filmmaker John Hamlett, “Remembering Kirkby in Wartime“.

This is a free event, however booking is required. Please call Pat France on 015242 71740 or 07887 940442.

Filming memoirs is John’s speciality and a passion. He graduated in documentary arts in 1996, where his degree projects focused on personal histories – the sort of stories people tell, rather than the sort historians write. Since then he’s spent over 25 years creating digital media and video (www.lunar.co.uk). He has worked on film commissions all over the UK including heritage work for The National Trust and The Yorkshire Festival of Story as well as projects funded by Historic England, The Lottery Heritage Fund and Yorkshire Dales National Park. I’ve also made short films like The POW that have screened at film festivals from Keswick & Konstanz to Bucharest & Barrie, winning awards in the UK, Russia and Canada.

John was responsible for the “Remembering Kirkby Lonsdale” project a few years ago which captures stories of this small market town in the 1930s & ’40s, as remembered by eight of the town’s oldest residents. Public screenings have entertained hundreds and helped raise thousands for local charities. Together these two films paint a vivid, humbling and entertaining picture of what life was like before the postwar world changed things forever.