Afternoon tea party thank you for Woodhorn Museum exhibition

Posted by The Journal on Aug 19, 09 12:47 PM in Nostalgia

A great English tradition was revived to thank dozens of people who helped create a major exhibition showcasing North East life during wartime.

An afternoon tea party was held at the Woodhorn Museum and Archives Centre, near Ashington, where the Northumberland at War exhibition is on show to visitors until the end of November.

Woodhorn tea party: Bevan Boy Angus Winter, who worked at Blucher mine and later fought in the war, with his wife Audrey

Bevan Boy Angus Winter, who worked at Blucher mine and later fought in the war, with his wife Audrey

More than 50 guests were invited to sit down for tea, sandwiches and cakes as a thank you for the part they played in helping to stage the display, which focuses on life in foreign fields and on the home front during World War II.

They all contributed personal memories of their wartime experiences, old photographs or memorabilia, which were used to put together the exhibition.

They included Irene Baxter, who was evacuated as a child from Arthur's Hill, in Newcastle, to the rural village of Whittingham, Berwick-born Henry McCreath, who served with the Northumberland Fusiliers and was a Japanese prisoner of war, Roseanna McPeake of Gosforth, who joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, and Rudi Kuhnbaum, a German POW in Northumberland, who later stayed and settled in the North East. For Rudi the tea party was an extra special event, as he was also celebrating his 90th birthday.

Liz O'Donnell, who personally interviewed many of the exhibition participants, said: "It is the first time that some of the guests will have seen the exhibition, and it has been a very emotional experience to see their own stories and photographs on the walls for the world to view.

"Nothing can really prepare you to see life-size images of your younger self. It was a world away."

Woodhorn tea party: German POW Rudi Kuhnbaum who stayed in Northumberland after the war and is 90 today Northumberland at War tells the story of those who defended the county's towns and villages, toiled in the fields to produce food and were evacuated from their urban homes to the countryside as Britain's troops fought the enemy overseas between 1939 and 1945.

It recalls the experiences of people who served in the so-called "Dad's Army" local defence force and Women's Land Army, young wartime evacuees and the Bevin Boys, who laboured in North East mines.

It tells its story through the eyes of eight real people, whose memories have been saved for posterity on special oral history recordings held at Woodhorn. Much of the material was gathered through a Heritage Lottery funded project, Access to Northumberland's History.

Pictured: German POW Rudi Kuhnbaum who stayed in Northumberland after the war and is 90 today

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