WORLD War II RAF Spitfire and Hurricane fighters – the planes which won the Battle of Britain 70 years ago this summer – will overfly the Severn Valley Railway this weekend and next as one of the highlights of the railway’s two back-to-back ‘1940s Weekends’.
The single-seater Spitfire, built locally at the Castle Bromwich, Birmingham factory, will ‘buzz’ the railway tomorrow afternoon, while the Hurricane will overfly the line a week later on Saturday July 3.
Meanwhile on the ground, bakelite radios will splutter back into life, phonographs will be wound, and the Glenn Miller ‘swing band’ sound will be resurrected once more as the Severn Valley Railway time-warps back seven decades, and becomes a virtual ‘film set’.
Some 400 actors or ‘re-enactors’ in a host of uniformed military and civilian roles – from ‘squaddies’ and ARP wardens to nurses and Landgirls – will be joined over the two weekends by up to 12,000 visitors, most of whom will enter into the full spirit of the event by donning the ‘glad rags’ of the era – for SVR ‘1940s Weekend’ is one of the biggest ‘audience participation’ events in the country.
For those who don’t have their own 1940s wardrobe, the railway has ‘1940s clothes stalls’ at both Bridgnorth and Bewdley, where period dress can be bought.
Nothing ‘bookmarks’ an era better than its music, and The Allen Francis Big Band returns to the SVR to bring alive again the unmistakable ‘Glenn Miller’ sound, in a series of three ‘Workers Playtime’ concerts at Kidderminster station each day.
When the action begins on Saturday morning, the SVR will be buzzing with civilian and military ‘enactors’, period cars, up to 40 military vehicles including armoured cars, trucks and bren gun carriers, and a salvo of steam trains arriving and departing at roughly 50-minute intervals, the first from Kidderminster at 9.05am, and from Bridgnorth at 9.35am.
The Engine House at Highley is the place where many passengers will gather at lunchtimes, for the daily visit by cigar-smoking wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who will give a morale-boosting address to allied troops - the precursor to an eagerly anticipated mock battle on the trackside between the Allies and the Germans.
From the balcony of the Engine House, 18-year-old singer Marina May will also entertain visitors.