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The Norfolk and Norwich Christian community website

Norfolk Christian charity commemorates WW1   

Soldiers who left West Norfolk in 1915 for Galipoli, never to return, are being commemorated by the Crowns Trust, a local charity running the WW1 trenches project for schools.

crownstrust1CF450The project is based at Bircham Newton in genuine WW1 training trenches that historians John Smith and Tony Armstrong, from the Docking Heritage Group, discovered were dug by an elite territorial force, The Lovat Scouts. The scouts learnt their tactics of working in small groups behind enemy lines in The Boer War and employed their day job skills (game keepers and gillies) in covert operations and sharp shooting. Their exploits laid the foundations for modern commandos and the SAS

Alan Crawshaw of the Crowns Trust said " we have been delighted at the number of local schools who have so far taken advantage of this unique project. It’s now one hundred years after our trenches were dug by the young men of The Lovat Scouts before they sailed for Gallipoli. We hope more local schools will take the opportunity to visit whilst the project is still running!”

The project is funded by The Norfolk Community Foundation Celebrating WW1 Fund and has subsidised the salary of a Crowns Schools worker to enable school children to enjoy a history and prayer walk through the trenches. The living history is provided by TimeTrippers with Sgt Taylor coming back from the past to talk about what it was really like. Open to all faiths and none, what those of faith call prayer, the secular world recognises as a need for children in a high tech world to practice “mindfulness”, and the activities take children back to a time when people had time for simple things. 

More details about the Crowns Trust and the work they do in West Norfolk schools is available on their web site http://www.crownstrust.org.uk/home/

 


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