The Porch Museum plans its new season with fresh local history displays from committee members and very excitingly indeed, from the town community.  We are running an exhibition devoted to Godmanchester’s men and women during World War I and World War II. These are subjects close to the heart of those who live here and so we welcome the Women’s Institute and GodmanchesterPrimary School who will present their displays on April 6^th at the museum.  St Anne’s School will be sending their display for the following opening date.  We are grateful to the teachers who have given their time and of course to the children.

Why World War I and World War II?
We are not celebrating these events but giving those who lived through them honourable remembrance.  In a town such as this with so many old families still living here, families whose men died or suffered in World War I, insisted that we must cover the second war as well as the first.  It is said that with not a generation between them, the advent of World War II broke people’s hearts here. So much had already been sacrificed and was it all for nothing? And perhaps this sentiment was shared with very many ordinary people in the rest of the country.

Our exhibition will bring you stories and memories from local men who died and those who came back; memories too from the families about the impact these experiences had on the families.  But there is humour too - and an unusual portrait of life in Godmanchester at that time.

World War I

1. We introduce The Bugle, a fascinating newspaper front page, chronicling national events and personal local events. A deeply original and creative work, this will be produced every month during the four years remembering the war and has been dreamed up by Roger Leivers working with Steve Bengree.  On April 6^th, opening day at the museum, you can see five months worth of The Bugle. 
2. There will be new photographs of those who signed for the Hunts Cyclists Battalion.
3. We will bring you tales of Godmanchester’s Royal Flying Corps members, Arthur Lewcock, remembered by his daughter Eileen, still living here today and a friend to so many in this town.
4. We will also revisit the bravery of Ace Pilot Willie Barnard Rhodes- Moorhouse, Godmanchester’s and the RFC’s first VC.
5. Others who fought are remembered by their families: Frankie Bruce and Arty Foster, remembered by their grandchildren Carol and Ron Sheldrake; the Green and Clark family with an account by local historian Ralph Clark.  Wonderful pictures come from Charles Reeve’s family and Joan Matson speaks of her grandfather Arthur whose job it was to oversee the German POWs.
6. We will look at how the women on the Home Front coped.
7. Lt Colonel Alan Chichester, Chief Constable for Huntingdonshire, who lived at the Grove opposite the Co-op today, armed his local policemen with revolvers and sabres and told his men to be on the lookout for spies.  He also armed the stationmasters at Godmanchester and Huntingdon.

World War II

1. In our display we have a charming account from Hinchingbrooke pupil 14-year-old David Hall of his grandfather Nobby Clark, a popular resident of the town and a submariner.
2. The sky in Godmanchester was full of aeroplanes, with so many air fields surrounding the town.  Malcolm Cohen provides an attractive and fascinating guide to those planes, including those flown over here by German pilots.
3. Evacuees were made welcome here and there were two romances between evacuees and local boys. Stanley Binge’s mother Renee was cured of her homesickness for London by his dad and Nobby Clark married a lovely girl evacuee called Poppy.
4. See the wartime wedding dress, first worn by Molly Jones and then by Poppy Clark, which has been found for us, and ironed, by Gillian Hall. Christopher Vane Percy found us the dummy for the dress.
5. The Women’s Institute will provide wonderful displays of recipes, make do and mend and fabulous knitting done by the members’ own fair hands, including the famously unsuccessful knitted swimsuit of that time, similar to that knitted by our grandest old lady, 97-year old Vera Arnold in her childhood. It sagged horribly when she came out of the water. With thanks to Sarah Conboy and a clever team of resourceful women.
6. The tragic story of young Dick Hilsden, son of Godmanchester’s Mayor Lucy Hilsden.
7. Sandy Ferrelly, aided by Roman Gate Surgery, will explain on a display board the medical advances which happened perhaps as a result of the wars.
8. A display from the children at GodmanchesterPrimary School.

And Coming Soon

1. The women who worked at Portholme Aerodrome Company and the machines they produced there. With thanks to local historian and Portholme Aviation expert David Hufford.
2. The extraordinary story of Farm Hall from historian Ken Sneath.
3. Sandy Ferrelly’s magical dressing tables from WWI and WWII.
4. Who was Who in the Home Guard. If you know their faces, please tell Pat Jones.

Also a New Roman Collection

This had been kindly lent to us by the family of the late Roman collector Gerald Reeve and will be curated by Porch Museum Committee member, archaeologist Shirley Walsh in sparkling new display cabinets organised by Porch Museum Chairman David Stokes and paid for by the museum’s sales of cards and DVDs.

Those who love old photos of Godmanchester will be delighted by newly researched archive pictures and indeed newly researched photographs from the private collection of Michael Brown and Steve Bengree.

Come and see us and bring us your own stories and photographs.  Or just come anyway and enjoy an afternoon at the PorchMuseum.