Goole Civic Society is playing a key role in a national programme to honour those who fell in the First World War.
The programme, launched by Prime Minister David Cameron over a year ago, aims to inspire local communities across the country to survey and conserve their local war memorials to ensure that by the end of the centenary of the First World War as many war memorials as possible are in good condition and “fitting tributes to the fallen”.
On Saturday January 23rd nine local volunteers attended a workshop organised by Goole Civic Society to learn how to record the condition of war memorials in Goole and surrounding areas.
Anna Wilson, of Civic Voice, one of four partner organisations involved in the programme, took the volunteers to the Goole Cenotaph in Boothferry Road to give them practical instruction on how to record a war memorial’s condition. She then guided them through the process of uploading their survey on to the national online database, War Memorials Online – www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk.
War Memorials Online currently has records of 23,000 of the estimated 100,000 war memorials in the UK. So far more than 10,000 condition surveys have been carried out and the results indicate that up to 10% of war memorials may be in poor or very bad condition. That could be a total of 10,000 memorials in urgent need of repair.
Funding is available for the repair and conservation of war memorials but only for the next three years. There is still a long way to go to record and survey them all, which is why volunteers are vital.
War memorials can take many forms. As well as the traditional cenotaphs, crosses and sculptures, there are memorial halls and other buildings, stained glass windows, gardens and arboretums, plaques, rolls of honour and books of remembrance. The aim is to record as many of these as possible.
The chair of Goole Civic Society, Margaret Hicks-Clarke, said: “The Civic Society is proud to be able to help with this important task, in conjunction with an army of volunteers up and down the country.
“Volunteers from the Civic Society and Goole’s First World War Research Group aim to survey as many war memorials as possible in the towns and villages around Goole. We are appealing to the public to provide information about memorials in their locality.”
Anyone able to provide information about the locations of war memorials is asked to email goolecivicsociety@gmail.com.
The Civic Society would also like to recruit new members to help with this project and other important work aimed at making Goole a more distinctive and attractive place. To find out more, please get in touch.
CONTACTS:
John Clarke, Press Officer, Goole Civic Society – 01405 760468; mob 07976 147239;
Margaret Hicks-Clarke, Chair - 01405 760468; mob 07841 802030