News
VE Day - A Huge Success
Sunday 13 May
Crowds flocked to Ripon Market Place on Saturday to celebrate VE Day and to see the fly past.
The weekend was threatened with bad weather but luck was on Ripon's side as Saturday remained a fine and warm day. This helped attract the crowds of people to the Market Place to see the various displays that were there to demonstrate life in the 1940's.
The live singing and dancing entertained the crowds bringing a real buzz to the City as everyone got into the swing of the celebrations. For old and young there was something on offer. Whether it was seeing the old military equipment and vehicles, looking at gas masks and rations books or watching demonstrations of a typical wash day it helped people remember times past. It was a great day for the children and younger generations to get a real taste of life back then.
The children loved the animals that had taken up home on the market place from a goat, sheep and lambs, a chicken and chicks to the ever popular baby rabbits. The Royal Engineers were there too to give an insight into modern day army life.
The afternoon finale was the fly past which saw crowds lining the streets to see this spectaular sight. The distant rumble saw everyone looking to the skys as the Lancaster bomber flanked by a Spitfire and a Hurricane flew over Kirkgate up to the Square. The planes flew over three times in total and was quite breath taking.
The day was topped off with the VE Day Celebration Ball at Hugh Ripley Hall. The evening saw over 80 people enjoy an evening of 1940's entertainment. The vast majority of people made a great effort in dressing up for the occasion which saw old miltary uniforms, typical farm labourers, delivery boys and a New York gangster. The ladies were all finely dressed with lots of red nails and lipstick on show. The singer Lola Lamour sung a selection of wartime songs brilliantly while Paul Harper brought humour and fun to his show. All topped off with dancing to traditional music from Decades disco. Even if you didn't know how to dance to 1940's songs before the evening everyone gave it a go.
The organisers for the whole day did a brillaint job in getting so many different things happening and hosted a day to remember for all to enjoy.
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Comments
1. (Sunday 13 May) It was an excellent and very interesting day in Ripon. The Ball was really fun. Thanks to Emma from Storm in a Teacup for putting in so much effort.
2. (Thursday 27 May) As someone who occasionally works in Ripon but lives outside Harrogate District it was a great disappointment to me to find out that Ripon had staged such an interesting event but had neglected to advertise it to the wider world and even in Ripon. In the week preceeding, my wife and I had only seen one poster in Ripon and which was in the window of the RAFA club which had advertised when the fly-past would happen but did not give any other details even to what the fly-past was honouring, the date did not 'click' until we saw reports of the event on the local TV news. My wider family in Northallerton was also disappointed to have missed out & would have gladly come to Ripon to support the festivities. If there was indeed a plethora of information around the city I am afraid to say that they were not noticible to these eyes. I would hasten to add that I believe that the Cathedral Beer Festival held on a previous weekend was far better advertised, and no I did not attend that either! You may be interested to know that there is an annual WW2 themed weekend held on the North Yorks Moors Railway at Pickering in mid-October.