YORK’S Festival of Remembrance attracted a bumper audience of more than 900 when it returned last night to its traditional home, York Barbican.
The event, which had to move to the smaller Grand Opera House and Theatre Royal for the previous three years because the Barbican was closed, was able to go back to the entertainment venue following a £2 million refurbishment by new operators SMG.
The larger venue gave producer Eileen Lavender sufficient space to reintroduce the full Entry of the Standards towards the start of the evening, featuring about 16 standards.
Choirgirl of the Year Isabel Suckling from Fulford, who was signed by Decca Records last year following a nationwide search to find Britain’s most talented choirgirl, played a new starring role in the event, singing Over The Rainbow and Imagine.
The evening also featured the Heavy Cavalry and Cambrai Band and York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir, while singer Janina Sweetenham travelled all the way to York from Cornwall to take on the dual role of soloist and leader of the community singing with Eileen Lavender’s York Ladies.
Members of the York Air Training Corps Cadets also took part, the narrator was Korean campaign veteran Jim Hammond, and Brian Coates told jokes in the guise of the ‘Old Codger.’ The evening finished with a service of remembrance.
The festival, which was celebrating its 21st anniversary just as the Royal British Legion marks its 90th birthday, is set to raise thousands of pounds for the Legion’s annual Poppy Appeal.
Poppy Week was launched on Saturday with a short service at the South Africa War Memorial at the Garden of Remembrance in Duncombe Place, near York Minster.
Fitting tribute to our fallen
REMEMBRANCE Day is always one of the most important days of the year, but this year it is even more special.
Edwin Lutyen’s famous war memorial in Station Rise has just been been restored, The Royal British Legion is celebrating its 90th anniversary, and yesterday marked the 21st year of York’s Festival Of Remembrance.
How fitting then, that it should have taken place again at its original home, The Barbican.
And what a way to mark the festival’s return. Fulford’s star choirgirl Isabel Suckling was in fine voice and Catterick Garrison’s Heavy Cavalry and Cambrai Military Band were, as ever, on top form.
But the best thing about last night’s event is that after three fraught years at different venues, it marked a return to stability for the festival organisers.
They tell us a near full house attended to pay their respects to those who lost their lives, not only during two world wars but in more recent conflicts.
The festival will have raised thousands of pounds for the British Legion’s Poppy Appeal and with this being poppy week, those who were unable to be at the Barbican last night will still have a chance to support the legion’s work.
It is as relevant today as ever.
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