A corner of Yorkshire has its own junior version of the Three Choirs Festival thanks to the team behind a Community Spaces project.
Royd Regeneration, which secured a CS grant to renovate a memorial garden in Mytholmroyd, has been using its additional Sustainability Grant to hold events in the new garden.
The latest was held to unveil the restored statue of a soldier on the village war memorial. Children from three local primary schools came together to sing at the event and they proved such a hit that the choir is being brought back to sing at the forthcoming Remembrance Day service on November 13 as well as carol concerts in December and a “Wake up the Garden” event planned for next March.
Jade Smith of Royd Regeneration says: “The children were absolutely marvellous. They were fascinated by the history of the war memorial as almost all the 132 men named on it were from their schools and some of them were related.”
The war memorial was originally unveiled in 1922 by local First World War veteran Gilbert Hartley. It was vandalised in 1992 and the head was stolen. A replacement proved universally unpopular with villagers, says Jade.
Once the memorial garden was built, local campaigners set about finding a new head for their statue. They commissioned West Riding Stone Carvers to make a fresh replacement, which was unveiled at the latest event by Gilbert Hartley’s daughter Barbara Jeffrey, accompanied by her great-grandchildren.
Work on the statue was funded by private donations, street collections and a grant from Calderdale Council.
Jade adds: “We had the new head in place and covered with a sheet for three weeks before it was officially launched and I am delighted to say that our local youngsters respected the site and left it well alone until the unveiling.”
Martin Proffitt
