We will be holding a WW2 Homefront Exhibition in Aylsham Town Hall (Norfolk) over the May Bank Holiday weekend and are currently researching all areas of life in the Town during the war years. For instance, were you an evacuee in Aylsham? We know the boys from Parmemtier(?) Grammar School, London were sent to Aylsham instead of to North Walsham and that the next batch of evacuees who came to us were from Edmonton in London. Maybe you were billeted here or were you a sailor on HMS Strathavon, the ship our WI "adopted"? Did you go to school in Aylsham? Where were you the day the German plane machine gunned the Town? Were you coming out of school, in Schoolhouse Lane, in the Churchyard of Market Place? We are looking for photograhs of the men who died during the 1939-45 war whose names are on our War Memorial. Please help us if you can.
We had a very successful weekend with 5,000 to 6,000 people taking part. One evacuee who came to the exhibition found a photograph of herself aged 9 years in a photograph album we had been able to copy from the Norfolk Archives. A very emotional moment. Twin girls who had been born in Aylsham when their mother and brother had been evacuated here, came for the weekend and their brother who didn't want to be left out also came for the weekend from America! Friendships of sixty years ago were rekindled; memories that had been buried were aroused and a quote from our Parish Magazine sums it up: "The WI exhibition has done us all a great service in enabling us of a particular generation to unlock the treasure chest of our memories."