Meifod during WW1 (August 2014)

Meifod during World War I

In August 2014 Meifod held a weekend of events to mark a hundred years since the start of the first world war. But it began as a much smaller concept…

Beginnings

Dave and Frances Ward, members of the history group, and also on (as it was then) Meifod’s Parochial Church Council (PCC) floated at a PCC meeting the idea of marking the anniversary of the start of WW1 by finding out more about the men named on Meifod’s war memorial, and perhaps having a special service in the church to remember them…

Luned Corser – also a member of the history group and the PCC – volunteered to read some WW1 poetry… and we thought a backdrop of maybe some WW1 recruiting posters would give the right atmosphere…

The sky’s the limit…!

It seemed just a matter of days later that we were talking about a two-day exhibition in the church, concentrating on what Meifod people did during the war, talks, a display of memorabilia, a film on the Saturday evening in the village hall, even a trench in the church made of kneelers covered in hessian (complete with ‘rats the size of cats’) – and, of course, flowers and refreshments. All rounded off with a service in the church on the Sunday evening, and a wreath laid at the foot of Meifod’s war memorial, which is a plaque on the outside of the church tower.

And it was, in the end, all that and more, and involved the whole village – and we were even lent a WW1 machine gun as part of the exhibition (‘Are you sure the vicar will be OK with that in the church??’ ‘Yes.’).

Over four hundred people came to the exhibition over the weekend – from Meifod and further afield.

Making it happen

To get started we used word of mouth, and put up posters in the village telling people what was planned, and asking if people would be willing to share memorabilia, photographs, stories…Gradually things gathered pace, and along with offers of actual items (some of which were very poignant), discussions produced more and more ideas.

The basis of the exhibition – information about people and events in and around Meifod (and also in Montgomeryshire in general) – came from a careful combing of copies of the Montgomeryshire Express from 1913-1919. Frances Ward spent long days in Newtown Library going through the newspapers and photocopying everything that seemed relevant. Cuttings included suggestions about the best vegetables to grow for maximum yields during wartime; letters from the front; debates about whether it was even possible for women who weren’t farmers’ wives to work on the land; details of the severity of the tribunals giving verdicts on appeals against conscription; the great pushes for more fundraising as the war progressed; appeals for supplies for hospitals; advertisements for what could be included in parcels for ‘the lads in khaki’; and the Great Plough of 1917/18.

Vira Price similarly copied out items from the County Times.

The final push

The week before the weekend of the 9^th/10^th of August was hectic.

Display boards that other organisations had offered, were collected; the lockable cabinet for displaying the memorabilia people were lending was transported from the Powysland Museum – and another protected display case built on the spot when we realised just how much people were bringing in; and the machine gun was collected.

A team gathered in Dave & Frances Ward’s house to mount all the elements of the exhibition – text and images – on card… As Frances finalised the text, Joe Healey designed the pages, and when they were printed, the sheets were passed to the team to stick them on card.

And on the evening of Friday 8^th, everyone came to the church to get it all in place. It was an evening not without drama.

Going over the top

When the exhibition opened at 10am on the Saturday morning, the entrance to the church was impressively flanked by larger than lifesize rifles and tin helmets, made by Ken Gilmour.

The exhibition started in the entrance to the church with a display about Meifod before the war (including train excursions, and a newspaper account of how some hot air balloons in a race starting in Paris came down near Llanfair Caereinion, and the balloonists had to be rescued - but spoke only a little English) and wound round the church. The machine gun stood by the reception table (and was an irresistible photo opportunity for many).

The story of the war

At the east end of the south aisle the story of the war was summarised (the causes, the countries involved, recruitment, Welsh regiments, the patriotism of 1914, major battles) and next to that a display of WW1 memorabilia lent by the families of local men (medals, dead men’s pennies, Princess Elizabeth 1914 Christmas tins, pieces of kit, and photographs).

The front line

Along the south aisle, there were displays about the role played by women (particularly local women), life at the front in the trenches (including the most common injuries and trench infections), hospitals and nursing, information about the Meifod men who died, and local letters from the front. At the west end of the church, a tv showed the 1916 film about the battle of the Somme.

The altar was draped with the union flag.

The home front

In the space in front of the organ, on the north side of the chancel, we re-created a 1914/18 kitchen, with kitchen items loaned by a local antique shop, and with original letters from the front on the pine table, next to a Victorian writing slope. Dawn Lidster, in long skirt and shawl, sat knitting socks (for her son at the front) from an old pattern, explaining to visitors what she was doing, and how necessary it was. She also demonstrated the making of rag rugs.

The north aisle had information about farming during the war, with an old wooden plough, and butter churns.

The Peace

And at the west end of the north aisle the display focused on the Peace – what happened in Meifod when the war ended, the Meifod branch of the Comrades of the Great War, and the building of the Village Institute.

And…

Cake, tea and coffee was served in the vestry (team led by Tracey Frost and Carol Owen), and a simple trestle table and chairs were set up in the ‘trench’ that had been built in the base of the tower by a team organised by Nigel Baldwin and Chris Roberts.

Jane Davies organised flower displays, including patriotic red, white and blue at the beginning of the war, white and red to represent the Red Cross in the south aisle, wild flowers in the ‘kitchen’ and the ‘trench’, poppies at the end of the war.

Evensong

We ended the whole event with the service of Evensong in the church on Sunday evening.

We got permission from the vicar to use the Church of England Book of Common Prayer Evensong service, as this would have been the regular service used in Meifod until 1921.

We chose the hymn ‘O God, our help in ages past’ because it was sung in the service for the dedication of the Meifod war memorial on 11^th November 1921, and the hymn ‘For all the saints who from their labours rest’ because it was sung at a requiem service in Welshpool in November 1917 commemorating the men who had died so far during the war (source: Montgomeryshire Express).