WHEATLEY HILL History Club is holding its annual Local History Day on Saturday, July 2 – it has been brought forward from its usual September date to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

The event runs from 10am to 2pm and is in All Saints Church, where a pipe organ was installed immediately after the war by public subscription in memory of the men who had fallen.

Club members have been researching all of the men from Thornley, Ludworth and Wheatley Hill who died, and are putting on displays about them.

Among numerous other exhibits will be a display about the home front, in particular the Co-operative Society which opened its Haswell and District branch in Wheatley Hill exactly 100 years ago. It was opened by miners’ leader Peter Lee, who worked at the local colliery and who was buried in the village after his death in 1935.

On Friday, July 1, the club will join the primary school in laying crosses on the village memorial, and the weekend will culminate with a talk in the church on Sunday, July 3, at 6pm about the Battle of the Somme by Peter Welsh from Washington U3A. It will include music from the Wellfield School choir and will conclude with readings of First World War poems.

Everyone is welcome to the events on Saturday and Sunday.