Commemorating the 80th Anniverary of the D Day Landings

Longlevens Library

28th May to 10th June 2024

GCN Presentation: Sat 1st June, 3pm to 4pm

GCN & Longlevens Library - Joint Venture

What is this event about?

GCN's War Outreach in Schools is an educational project that raises awareness of the Impacts of ‘War, Conflict and Remembrance' for Children, Young People and to the General Public. GCN and volunteer Veterans from the Veteran's home Alabare in Longlevens helped to set up a WW2 display in the Library.

Aims of the Event

To help our local library bring to life aspects of War, what it was like, who participated and how it affected people's daily lives.

GCN has been able to help provide information and a model replica of the D Day Landing area. Items GCN has provided:

Posters on:

Women at War (Bletchley Park Code Breakers)

RAF, Royal Navy, & Paras

Enigma code breaking

Operation Overlord (DDay)

Operation Fortitude (disinformation)

GCN has also loaned a 39 inch long DDay Landscape / Diorama, surrounded by recycled poppies.

One of the guest speakers at this event was 95 year old Irene Jones, who gave an astonishingly clear and detailed account of what it had been like for her, who, aged just 15, had been one of the evacuees in 1939.

Chris with Irene Jones

Her story begins:

“Evacuation from Birmingham to Coalville in Leicestershire on 1st Septemeber 1939 began with a slight hiccup for me. I was 10 years old. That morning my mother had taken me to St Agnes Church of England Junior School on Stratford Road, Sparkbrook, Brimingham. A large, red brick collection of buildings standing beside a church with a huge rectangular tower. I hadn't been to this school before. Prior to September 1939 I had attended Dennis Road Junior School, which was about a mile away, but in August we had moved house and my mother had arranged for me to start at St Agnes School at the beginning of the autumn term. This was nearer to our new home...” read full story »

Click each image below to see full-size