Visits
We are planning to arrange several visits per year to places such as Country Houses and Castles, Musuems and Art Galleries. Trips so far have included a visit to the Houses of Parliament, Historic Petersfield, Portsmouth Royal Dockyard Historical Trust and Bombay Sapphire. Visits this year include BMW Mini Plant, Mary Rose, Chawton House and War on the Line at the Watercress Line.
Our next visit is on 6th September to RNLI, Poole training centre
War on the Line, Sat, 15th June
We were transported back to experience what it must have been like during the Blitz in WW2. This event, by the Watercress Line, had been designed to give a flavour of the life and times of different people living in wartime and to mark the 75th Anniversary of D Day.
At each station a different event was laid on with actors playing the parts of servicemen and local people. Unexploded bombs, spies, land girls and spivs abound in this historical event brought to life so vividly!
A jazz dance band played at one station, a forties ‘makeover’ at Pearls Pin-up Parlour was at another and an RAF plotting room was also on display. You could buy 40’s clothes and memorabilia from the many stalls at the stations.
Many of our members joined in the fun by dressing up in period costumes. It was wonderful to experience steam travel of the period and to see the Spitfire flypast, vintage military and civilian cars.
Janet and Bob Cowan commented ‘The trip was a fun day out made especially amusing by the costumes many visitors wore which were most creative. We enjoyed chatting with a 'headmaster' and his 'wartime wife' on the train from Alresford to Medstead’.