100 years on: Marston Green to remember the Great War

VIGIL: A ceremony at St Leonard's Church is one of
several events taking place in Marston Green next month

A FOUR-day event will be held in Marston Green to mark 100 years since the start of the First World War.
Bickenhill Parish Council has spent months planning for the anniversary – like so many villages, a number of young men from the locality lost their lives in the conflict.

• Friday, August 1 - A talk by author John Garth at the Parish Hall, Elmdon Road. Over 10 years, Mr Garth wrote Tolkien and the Great War - a biography which looks at the lasting impact that fighting on the frontline had on the Lord of the Rings author. The talk will also reveal how Tolkien gave a Marston Green man, Robert Gilson, a place in the epic trilogy. The event starts at 7.30pm. Tickets available from Margaret Wilden (0121 779 2196) or Clive Hill (0121 779 3558).
• Saturday, August 2 - Take a trip back in time to the summer of 1914. There will be an evening of entertainment, again at the Parish Hall, with music, poetry and community singing of the sort that was popular a century ago. Book tickets on the numbers above.
• Sunday, August 3 - Service of commemoration in the Garden of Memory - the site of the local war memorial.
• Monday, August 4 - The programme of events is rounded off with an evening service at St Leonard's Church. The event will be one of hundreds of candlelit vigils taking place at 11pm - the time that Britain declared war on Germany. As the then Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, remarked on that fateful night: "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."