COLNE Commemorates the Great War last Saturday attracted huge crowds, despite rotten weather. Chair of the Town Council Events Committee, Cllr. Dorothy Lord, enthused: “The response has been rapturous. I was quite overwhelmed on Saturday night. Everyone pulled together on the day, despite hiccups, like our marquee supplier letting us down at the very last minute. Many, many people have told me they really appreciated what we organised and compared us favourably to better funded events in larger towns.”

Dozens of Colners posted comments on Facebook calling for the event to be staged again as soon as next week! The whole town was decked out with signs, flags and bunting. Shops and businesses threw themselves in to the occasion, dressing their premises, and in some cases, their staff for the day. The Events Committee is meeting next week to discuss funding and to consider staging the event again in some form next year. In addition, the Committee is staging GreenRock on 30th August, the week after the Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival, on the Millennium Green.

The Hippodrome’s Western Front experience received especial praise. Children were used as volunteers in the trench and the casualty clearing station and it was a very popular venue by people of all ages. The team at the Hippodrome reported that they were surprised by the numbers of visitors, with a crowd lining the orchestra pit often reaching four deep and visitors struggling to pack onto the stage. The catering there was so popular that they ran out of cakes twice!

The Gable’s shows were also very popular, with standing room only at the back of the Hall and a healthy crowd thronging the fringes of the Parade Ground while the Sergeant put the new recruits through drill to comic effect. However, the rousing, patriotic nature of the Gables’ Show demonstrated exactly how a small town like Colne managed to send so many of its young men off to the Front and just how the Pals regiments worked. Potential recruits were told they would be kept with their pals and that they had no choice but to do their duty.

The Colne Commemorates Co-ordinator, Eleanor Jolley, said, “We wanted people of Colne to learn more about the Great War and to get an idea of what life might have been like at home and at the Front in an engaging way. The success of this was summed up when I came upon an elderly man from Colne talking to one of our performers, a history student, after the Service of Commemoration. Here we had old and young sharing the day; a re-enactor meeting a man for whom the Great War had been a reality.”

Thanks Go To

Colne Town Council would like to extend its thanks to the countless volunteers who made the day possible, including:

  • Colne’s British Legion who hosted the Parade Muster and provided refreshment and all who took part in the Parade
  • The Police who made the road closure for the Parade possible
  • The team at St. Bartholomew’s, plus the other attending clergy
  • The backstage team at The Hippodrome
  • The owners of the former Providence Methodist Church at The Gables, who gave repeated access to the building for rehearsals and decoration while the sale of the building is going through
  • Colne Library who put on an informative and fascinating exhibition about Colne in WW1 (running until Christmas), as well as hosting period tea and cakes
  • The four East Lancashire Mayors and their retinues who experienced the day
  • The splendid performers at The Gables who put on a rousing Recruitment Show plus the other performers from Colne Dramatic Society, Borderline and the Garrick, Pendle Hippodrome, Stagedoor, and Pendle Youth Choir
  • The team at The Little Theatre who hosted WW1 object handling and a display of pigeons and dogs in their yard, plus the talks by Geoff Crambie and the film on The Home Front in the North West
  • All who helped with the Event’s signage and decoration,
  • Colne Camera Club, who produced wonderful, evocative, sepia mementoes of the day
  • The catering team, who were forced to operate in an awful downpour, but remained cheerful nonetheless,
  • Colne’s photographic mascots who posed for pictures tirelessly
  • The team at The Market, who have been running Colne Commemorative Wall all year and who also mounted the fabulous sensory experience (still operational this week).
  • The amateur photographers and video makers who are compiling a record of the day

Most of all, the Events Committee would like to thank everyone who came and experienced Colne Commemorates the Great War with their families.

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