A Lancashire schools project is to receive a huge boost from local law firm Vincents Solicitors. Vincents has thrown its weight behind the Longridge Cluster Schools Armistice Commemoration, organising events throughout the summer and even seconding a member of staff to co-ordinate promotional activities.
The big event in the diary is a Coffee Morning on Monday June 25th hosted by Vincents at Longridge Station from 11am to 1pm. Local companies and community organisations are invited to come along to hear directly from the man behind the project, Barnacre Road Primary School headteacher Simon Wallis.
The project, involving 15 schools and more than 700 pupils, aims to bring together young people with the wider community to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. The year-long memorial will culminate in a spectacular gala performance by the children at Preston’s Guild Hall on Armistice Day, November 11th 2018.
Businesses are being asked to get involved in a number of ways, including hosting one of 93 Ghost Soldiers, a series of silhouettes representing each of the Longridge men who died during the war. Vincents will be the first to display one of the life-size sculptures in the window of its office in Towneley Parade.
Gail Maudsley from Vincents will be working with businesses around Longridge and across Lancashire to promote the project, to help secure further sponsorship and raise awareness in support of the schools. To coincide with Longridge Field Day on Saturday June 9th, Vincents will be showcasing the project with a new window display. The team will also have a stall at the Longridge and Goosnargh Show on July 7th.
Gail said: “This is such a fantastic project, bringing to life an incredibly important part of our history, about which fewer people know as time passes. The school children, their teachers and parents are putting so much into the event, they deserve recognition and support from all of us.
“We started out simply as corporate sponsors but the whole office has been so inspired that we wanted to do more. I am delighted to be joining the project team to help bring other local businesses on board.”
Simon Wallis, who is producing the November 11th performance, wants the town and indeed the whole county to remember the Centenary through art, music, performance and storytelling. The project is also expected to raise several thousand pounds for the Royal British Legion, and other veterans’ charities, just as a similar Second World War memorial event at the Guild Hall did five years ago.
Simon said: “The response from the children and their families has been incredible. We’ve had all sorts of artefacts and stories brought into school, and the pupils are all working incredibly hard to pull together everything needed to put on this huge show in November.
“We can’t do any of it without the help of our corporate sponsors. This extra pair of hands from Vincents is enormously generous and will make a real difference in helping us stage an event which the children will remember for the rest of their lives, and which we hope will make the town proud. The wartime generation have all but gone now, and this centenary really feels like the last chance to commemorate the sacrifices they made for all of us.”
