Page 6 - Calderstones Connect Newsletter Winter 14/15

06 : CONNECT - WINTER 2014/15
In Memory of the Great War
As the nation geared up to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War, the Mayor planted a commemorative tree on Calderstones Park.
Cllr Ranson was joined by local dignitaries representing the parish and parish council, the Royal British Legion, Whalley Scout Group and Calderstones Hospital. These included Cllrs Terry Jill, Joyce Holgate and June Brown from Whalley Parish Council (Joyce and June are also Trust governors); Nikhil Khashu, Director of Finance at Calderstones; Father Price and Rev Gill Dyer from the village’s churches; the British Legion’s Norman Whitham and local Scouts leader Steve Tomlinson.
Rev Dyer said prayers and the Mayor read an extract of war poetry to the invited guests, who were joined by a number of locals from the housing estate. Cllr Brown presented the Mayor with a decorative poppy grown from seed which originated in Flanders.
This event was widely reported in the local media.
Calderstones Park in Whalley is a modern housing development. It forms part of the site of the former St Mary’s Military Hospital (opened 1915) which ultimately evolved into
our Foundation Trust.
We marked the centenary of the start of the conflict with a display of images of the hospital during the time it was used for military purposes. The photographs and newspaper extracts from a century ago have been provided by Whalley historian George Hardman, recently retired from the Trust.
Recently, media students from Accrington and Rossendale College filmed part of a drama documentary at Calderstones, with actors dressed as nurses and patients at the height of the First World War.
The final shot of their film involved a camera mounted on a drone enabling them to zoom away from a vintage scene of military hospital life out to a view of today’s modern hospital.