Скачать или смотреть VE Day 80th Anniversary Frome Somerset 8 May 2025

"Frome had a most memorable day, 80 years on from VE Day, 8th May 1945. Jane Norris, Frome Branch RBL Remembrance coordinator, led a service and Singalong at Rossetti House part of Care UK in the morning. Children from St Louis RC primary school joined us. Then at 3pm in front of a crowd of about 120, a recording of Winston Churchill's speech to the nation was played. Wreaths were laid by veterans before King George VI speech on that day was relayed, finishing with the National Anthem of 1945. It was all very moving, and most assembled could only imagine what the emotion may have been when peace was declared in Europe after six years at war. We can only hope that VJ Day on 15th August may have brought final confirmation that conflict was indeed at an end. We were honoured that alongside veterans, including one hundred year old RN veteran John Oakey, Mohammed Saddiq Lord Lieutenant of Somerset attended as did Mark Shelford representing Anna Sabine MP. The Mayor of Frome Andy Jones laid a wreath on behalf of the town.

After Scones and Songs able assisted by Women with Military Connections, and with thanks to the wonderful team who put together the tea, Michael Knight led a procession from the Frome Memorial Theatre Garden in his WW2 GI jeep on the route that had been followed some 80 years ago from the then named Memorial Hall to St John's Church in Bath Street, where the original service for Thanksgiving for Victory had taken place. A contemporary address was given by Jane Norris and the Exhortation and Kohima Epitaph read out. Jane later had the great pleasure of ringing the backstroke when the bells rang out, replicating 80 years to the day and in the same tower where her mother had rung on VE night. Her mother Mary Kelley had lost her father when German incendiaries fell in Frome on Good Friday 11th April 1941. It is with this family connection of Jane's grandfather Billie Cole being killed whilst on ARP duty alongside Ernest Barnes who also died, that Jane feels so committed to recording this local history. One family amongst thousands and thousands affected. We pay respect to a generation who survived so much and Kept Calm and Carried On.