Less than a year to the start of the Accrington Pals Centenary

A programme of community activities running from 2014 in Hyndburn, will be held to coincide with the recently announced programme of national commemorations of the First World War, with the first event; The Duke of Lancaster’s Freedom Parade, set to take place in Accrington on 1st July 2014.

The Accrington Pals Centenary Commemorations Group, made up of members of the community including Pals experts; historians; local craftspeople; people involved in drama; local voluntary groups and the Council, have come up with lots of ideas to commemorate this momentous historic occasion.

Cllr Miles Parkinson, Council Leader and Chair of the group said; “The Accrington Pals are interweaved into the very fabric of our local history, famously forming as they did a Pals battalion to fight in the First World War, with many men from this area answering Kitchener’s call and joining up.

But on 1st July 1916, on that fateful first day of the Battle of the Somme, they suffered severe losses and over 600 casualties, leaving the community back home shattered and hardly anyone untouched, with so many losing husbands, sons, brothers, uncles, friends and neighbours.

It’s fitting then that we look forward to a whole programme of events from 2014 onwards to commemorate the centenary anniversary of the Accrington Pals.  It can’t be pinned down to one day, because there are different dates to take in, including when the first World War began and ended, when the men enlisted, when they left the Borough and  when the Pals went into battle.”

The group’s plans include an exhibition to commemorate the Pals at Haworth Art Gallery; planting Poppies for the Pals at sites right across the Borough; a special commemoration service at St John’s Church in Accrington in February 2014 and a Centenary Concert, including a performance of the Pals March on 27th September 2014. An Accrington Pals commemorative beer has already been produced and is on sale at Accrington Information Centre in the Town Hall and plans are in place to update the Borough’s boundary signs to say  ‘Welcome to Hyndburn home of the Accrington Pals’.

Commemorations are planned in Accrington and France on 1st July 2016,  with an early morning special Council meeting and a maroon flare  at 7.20am in Accrington, to mark 100 years since the Pals went ‘over the top’,  and books of honour presentations and wreaths laid at the Accrington Pals memorial in France..

The Council is also working with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment to arrange the Freedom Parade in July 2014 and also to incorporate a commemoration of the Accrington Pals in a new town square in Accrington, which will be a fitting tribute to all those brave men whose losses devastated the whole community.

Cllr Parkinson concluded “The Pals centenary events will be for everyone, right across the Borough, to recognise the Pals’ tremendous bravery and their sacrifice.