Voice Magazines - Kirkby-in-Ashfield & Annesley Edition - May 2025
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Winston Churchill, Victory Speech, on May 8th 1945.
page last month with the small writing and the green writing on the black background (like an old computer). The message has been relayed and received, this is a shorter one this month to enable us to make it larger and we loved the fact you called, so any readers are very welcome to call and provide us with feedback, we always take it on board.
I was also going to relay a lovely little story which involved Mr Emily locking us out of the house, me unhappily walking through Riddings in my slippers, the mad aunty and uncle and the parentals all involved but Glenys has saved Mr Emily further embarrassment on this matter!!
VE Day 80 Years On Remembering the Day That Changed History
On May 8th, 1945, the world awoke to the news that Nazi Germany had surrendered, marking the end of the Second World War in Europe. Victory in Europe (VE) Day was met with an outpouring of relief and joy and millions celebrated after six years of devastating conflict.
On May 8th, 1945, the world awoke to the news that Nazi Germany had surrendered, marking the end of the Second World War in Europe. Victory in Europe (VE) Day was met with an outpouring of relief and joy and millions celebrated after six years of devastating conflict.
80 years later, we reflect on that historic moment, its significance, and why it remains as important as ever.
The announcement of Germany’s surrender came on May 7th, but it wasn’t until the following day that people across Britain, the Commonwealth, and the Allied nations could officially celebrate. In London, enormous crowds gathered outside Buckingham Palace, where King George VI and Prime Minister Winston Churchill appeared on the balcony to wave to the cheering masses. Churchill’s famous radio address captured the spirit of the moment,
declaring: “My dear friends, this is your victory.”
Beyond London, cities and towns across the UK, including our local towns and villages, erupted in celebration. However, alongside the celebrations, there was also mourning. The war in the Pacific raged on, and many families grieved lost loved ones, knowing that peace had come at a significant cost.
The Derby Evening Telegraph featured extensive coverage of the VE Day celebrations. The front page of the May 8th, 1945 edition highlighted the surrender of Germany and included reports on local reactions and events. Interestingly, alongside the news of victory, the newspaper also published the first weather forecast since the start of the war, symbolising a return to normalcy, as weather reporting had been banned during the hostilities. I think there is something uniquely
British in this… “the war is over…back to talking about the weather”!
But VE Day was not just a moment of relief—it was the beginning of a new chapter. Europe faced the challenge of rebuilding shattered nations, reuniting families, and ensuring such a conflict would never happen again. The end of the war led to the formation of international alliances like the United Nations, aimed at promoting peace and diplomacy. The division of Germany, the rise of the Cold War, and the rebuilding of war-torn countries all stemmed from this momentous day.
As we mark the 80th anniversary, the lessons of VE Day remain crucial. It reminds us of the sacrifices made by the wartime generation, very few of whom still survive, and the resilience of those who rebuilt in the aftermath.
To many of our younger generation, WW2 is an abstract historical event. The atrocities committed before, during and after the war, are just entries in their history books. Marking events like VE Day helps us keep the memories alive and ensures such global carnage never happens again.
VE Day is an opportunity for us to honour veterans, educate younger generations, and reaffirm our commitment to peace. A peace which hangs in the balance right now thanks to our “friends” across the pond.
“We shall never forget.”
These articles are researched and written by Laura Billingham, a local content writer & author. Laura moved to the Peak District several years ago to pursue her passion for writing. To find out more visit www.word-witch.co.uk or contact Laura on 07736 351 341
Actual picture used on front cover of Daily Mirror on VE DAY
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PRECIPICE BY ROBERT HARRIS
You always know that you’re going to get a brilliant yarn from Robert Harris. His novel Conclave, about the death of a Pope and the shenanigans that followed that event, has just been intriguing movie audiences. And his latest book, Precipice is just as crammed with suspense and intrigue.
It combines fact and fiction – never forget that Harris was formerly a journalist, used to digging out things that others would often rather keep hidden. In this case the secret affair between the then British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, later Lord Asquith and a young aristocratic socialite less than half his age. This was going on in the summer of 1914, just before the start of the First World War.
The evidence lies in true letters a besotted Asquith wrote to his young lover Venetia, disclosing juicy information about the inner workings of a government on the precipice of war. Information which should never have been revealed outside that inner circle. Letters, telegrams and coded documents which Asquith was tossing from car windows to impress Venetia.
They wrote to each other incessantly and although Asquith destroyed her letters, Harris supplies the deficit by creating hers in order to tell the story. The story is partly fiction after all.
The book is fantastically well researched – Harris was given access to Asquith’s letters by the Bonham Carter family and it’s quite a story. And because it’s Robert Harris, it’s a fast read.
Whatever we think of modern politics across the globe, we have to remember that it’s almost certainly always happened before.
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All Around the Shire
CHIPPY DAYS
Wherever we lived as I was growing up, there always seemed to be a local chippy which we patronised regularly. The smell of the vinegar made me salivate in anticipation of a cheap, hot, delicious meal. It never tasted any better than when newspaper was used to wrap the contents. You might buy a cone of chips or a bag which you could eat while walking along.
And what did you call the crispy bits of fried batter you could buy for a penny? Batter bits, scratchings, scraps or something else? Some chip shops would offer a “thruppenny mix” which was a scoop of batter bits with a few mushy peas.
The fishcakes would be home-made by the owner’s wife, or you might have a battered sausage. One chap ran a small chippy from the front room of his terraced house. He only had two fingers on one hand. I used to whisper to my brother “Don’t have the battered sausage!”
Paul knew of a very bad-tempered chippy owner who battered a customer’s watch and fried it because the customer was complaining about waiting too long.
Did you ever order a giant pickled onion or a pickled egg which floated in the great glass jars on the counter?
Even when I was too young to see over the counter, I could warm my hands on the hot cabinets. The chip shop was a comforting place to be.
Happy days.
Janet and Paul Barrass are All Around the Shire. Find us on or email: oldfield512@btinternet.com
A dogs Day out
With the spring quickly turning into summer, it’s the perfect time to get out and explore some of the wonderful countryside our region has to offer!
Unbelievably It has been around 10 years since we last did this walk and I am sure it won’t be that long again as this is a cracker, with a great range of countryside and lovely views! Flake loved every step and he took a great many more than we did!
7.5 MILE CIRCULAR FROM POULTER COUNTRY PARK
A moderate walk which should take you and your dog around 3-4 hours to complete. There are sectiona of road so please take care, however most of the walk is on paths and trails. Please wear appropriate footwear, especially if it has been wet! And, as always, follow the countryside code.
Starting Point: Poulter Country park car park, South Whaley Road off the A632, Langwith. (South car park is situated at the Langwith end of Whaley Road).
1. Standing in the car park with your back to the road, pass through a wooden gate on your left adjacent to a sign reading ‘Country park walks’. Continue straight along a footpath passing a pond on your left. After a short distance ignore the path that splits right and uphill and continue straight ahead.
2. A little further on the path takes a slight detour left and then right. After, continue for some distance and then pass through a wooden gate, a car park and onto a road.
3. Turn right and continue along the road for some distance. Follow the road around to the left signposted for ‘Whaley’ and then a short distance after passing a house on your left, turn left along a lane and signposted bridleway.
4. After a short distance and just prior to reaching a large wooden gate, bear left away from the lane keeping a stone wall on your right. After a short distance and just prior to another large wooden gate, bear right to cross an open field.
5. At the far side continue straight into some woodland. Continue along this path for some distance crossing over 2 crossroads of footpaths, both with a marker post on your left. At the 2nd footpath cross diagonally, ignoring the private paths left and right.
6. Eventually you will reach a T junction of paths. Turn right and follow this path out of the woodland to continue with a hedge on both sides.
7. Continue straight ahead until you reach a farm house on your right. When you draw level with the farmhouse, turn left onto a signposted footpath for ‘Whaley Thorns’. Continue for a very short distance with a fence on your right. Where the fence ends, ignore the path to the right and continue straight ahead to cross an open field.
8. At the far side continue for a short distance along a stone lane. Upon reaching a large metal gate turn sharp right and back on yourself to continue uphill with a fence on your right.
9. After a short distance pass through a width restrictor and then cross over a metal bridge. Continue straight ahead passing houses on your left. After leaving the houses behind you will pass over a short concrete section of the path with a large wooden gate on your right. After this bear left and gently uphill along a path running parallel.
10. At the top of the hill pass through a width restrictor and then turn left. Continue straight and cross over a railway bridge. Further on cross straight over a crossroads of footpaths and then continue with a hedge on your right and trees on your left.
12. Continue for some distance and then pass a farm on your left. Upon reaching a road cross straight over to continue along ‘Limes Avenue’.
13. Continue straight ahead and when the road bends sharp left, turn right along a lane and sign posted footpath. Continue straight along the lane and then when the lane bends sharp left continue with the lane around to the left. After some distance the lane bends sharp right. At this point continue straight ahead, over a stile and continue with a stone wall on your left.
14. Continue until reaching a large opening in the stone wall. At this point turn left and continue with a hedge on your left. Continue with the hedge on your left until passing through a wooden gate onto a road. Turn left along the road and then take the 1st right into ‘Woodland View’.
15. Continue along this street for some distance. Continue when the street narrows and then cross straight over a road to continue between the houses and up some steps. At the top of the steps turn left.
16. Continue straight to pass through a width restrictor and then pass by a metal gate onto a road. Continue straight ahead and turn right at a mini roundabout.
17. Continue straight ahead along a tarmac path with a car park on your left. Continue straight along the path to cross over a railway bridge and into Poulter Country Park.
18. Once in the park, turn left following a red arrow on a marker post. After a short distance, turn right uphill. Continue straight ahead until arriving at a sharp left turn. Take the path left following the path with the trees on your right for a short distance before bearing right.
19. Continue straight ahead to pass by a viewpoint, indicated by a ‘Rhino Horn’ sculpture, up to your right and at a split in the path bear around to the left.
20. Further along, following the red arrow on another marker post on your left, bear right to follow the path downhill. After continuing to bear gently to the left, keep to the path, bearing right, to follow the red arrow and return to the car park.
11. Continue and pass a short yellow marker post on your left. After a short distance, keep your eyes peeled for a path off to the left into some woodland. Take the path. After a short distance, the path splits. Take the right hand split and continue to reach a T junction of paths. Turn right and continue until coming out of the woodland to a lane. Turn left and then straight along the lane.
This walk is for illustrative purposes only. Voice Magazines Ltd takes no responsibility for anyone who chooses to follow this route and encourages all walkers to obey all byelaws and signs and to respect the area they are walking in, ensuring they pick up all dog mess and obey the countryside code at all times.
HERITAGE OF
KIRKBY’S TOWN CENTRE CLOCK
In 2013, the three-sided clock outside the Nags Head Pub was taken down. After a petition raised at the Kirkby Heritage Centre and working with the Council, the Clock was taken back out of storage and renovated.
A ceremony was held on 22nd March 2019 and local people gathered to see the Clock unveiled at its old site.
In the past, when buses came into Kirkby, the main three stops were Station Street, Diamond Avenue and Lowmoor Road. A quick glance at the time, and you knew which bus you could get to your destination, if you had a choice of service. Sometimes you would wait to meet someone off a bus, and they could see you, perhaps a date was arranged under the Clock, before a walk up to the park or the Festival Hall, followed by a fish and chip supper.
After Dunkirk, men returning from France, were taken by train to many locations around the country to recover and be treated for injuries. A memory recorded in a local history paper said many men in a bedraggled state were seated around the clock as arrangements were made for them at the Market Hall on Hodgkinson Road. Ladies of the Town were asked to come down to help.
There were various constructions, in my younger days I recall a green metal upright, and later a concrete sort of pebble dashed effect.
In the Ashfield Chad of 27th March, a group photo taken in front of the Clock, with cheering, shows locals welcoming back a piece of Kirkby’s History. Comments on the day, included, ‘part of the Towns identity’. ‘It should never have been taken down in the first place’. Whatever thoughts expressed; the main one was how hard those who campaigned for its return had worked.
Public opinion cannot be underestimated, it may be remembered some years ago, the Byron Statue was taken off the front of the Co-op Building on Hucknall’s Market Place. Years later after a public appeal, it was discovered in storage and is now back in pride of place, looking down, adding to the tourist experience.
BEING INTERESTED IN LOCAL AND FAMILY HISTORY, I HAVE A FACEBOOK PAGE “ANNESLEY OC HERITAGE EXTRA”, WITH MANY EXCITING FACTS ABOUT THE AREA WITH PICTURES AND COMMENTS. WHY NOT TAKE A LOOK? EMAIL: SPOOKYSUE2014@OUTLOOK.COM OR CALL: 01623 721 905
Fred Maltby, Photographer of Kirkby took this before the Clock was erected
These photos were taken on the day of unveiling. In 2019.
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GARDENERS CALENDAR
The pace of change in the garden at the moment is incredible. So much stuff to do, but quite a bit is controlled by the weather.
Hardening off seedlings and plug plants is probably at the front of most of our gardening thoughts. We can still get sneaky frosts even now. One idea if you don’t have a cold frame in your garden is to use a warm south-facing sheltered spot, preferably at the base of a wall or hedge. If it’s still cold when you read this, then bringing plants indoors at night is a good idea for the first week of hardening off. If it’s not that cold at night cover with fleece, then on warmer nights leave the fleece off, still keeping it handy just in case.
It’s also unfortunately pest time, because tender shoots and roots are especially attractive for grubs and snails. Given that most of us won’t want to use toxic slug pellets, it’s worth trying anything organic, spreading wool pellets or spiky straw around vulnerable plants and shoots. One suggestion my local nursery expert swears by, is taking your pepper grinder out of the kitchen and grinding mixed peppers around target plants. She says it’s totally stopped the slugs around her hostas!
You can use nematodes to fight vine weevils. You’ll know you’ve got adult weevils by seeing the round chomps on the edge of leaves. Visual checks and picking them off will usually work with the fully grown weevils which are unlikely to be fatal. The real killers as we go through spring into summer are vine weevil grubs, which have the ability to totally eat their way through an entire root system. They are a particular problem in pots and baskets and look like little white grubs. If you find any in spent compost make sure there are no others in other tubs and get rid.
Beyond physical removal, nematodes are the best bet. These can be bought in garden centres or online. They are biological and need to be used within 10 days of being made active by adding water according to instructions. Then water them into the soil and keep the soil moist for a couple of weeks after watering. Good luck!
TOP TIP
Lift and divide overcrowded clumps of daffs – (those which didn’t flower this year). Deadhead, but don’t bend the leaves to tidy them, they need to take the goodness from the leaves back into the bulb for planting next year.
SPRING BRINGS ON THE WOODLAND FLOWERS
Warm, dry weather has triggered a bursting forth of spring flowers in woodland and hedgerow. Suddenly the countryside is full of wildflowers jostling for position, as wave after wave of flowers emerge. Ancient woods are especially rich and full of wood anemones, primroses, bluebells, lesser celandine, and then the pungent wild garlic. Trees and shrubs also burst into life with the glorious white flowers of blackthorn followed by the sweet heavy fragrance of common hawthorn or ‘May Blossom’. The brilliant white of blackthorn flowers en masse contrasts with dark black stems to light up the landscape. The earliest spring flower in woods or shady places is the diminutive lesser celandine, a cousin of the buttercup, with folk name of ‘pilewort’ because of the shape of its nodulelike roots. According to the medieval doctrine of symbols, this was an indication that you could use the plant to treat that medical complaint! Following close behind is the pretty wood anemone whose white or pinkish ‘petals’ are really the sepals that normally encircle the petals. Also known as wood crowfoot on account of the shape of its leaves, its Latin name is ‘nemorosa’ which simply means ‘woodland’. This innocent-looking plant is actually poisonous though herbal medical practitioners did recommend its use. Culpepper for instance suggested it to ‘purge the head mightily’, and a decoction of the leaves was used to bathe the body in an attempt to cure leprosy. In France the extract of the leaves was applied externally as mustard is sometimes used to ease muscular problems. In Roman times it was believed that the anemones only flowered when the wind blew and called it the ‘windflower’. For the Greeks, ‘Anemos’ or the Wind, sent the Anemones to herald the coming of spring, and this often coincided with March storms. In some European countries, the flower is taken as a symbol of bad luck, of ill-omen. Today in the UK we see this plant as a good indicator of an ancient woodland site, i.e. a wood that goes back to the medieval period.
Also, out in many shady, damp woods is the wild garlic a plant that is easy to grow in a shady garden
if you like garlic and want to cook with it. This plant has a subtle garlic flavour and fragrance combined with a texture rather like cooked spinach. It is best to grow it for the pot rather than collecting from the wild. Indeed, commercial collection for restaurants etc is strictly forbidden unless you have permission from the landowner – it is theft! In its natural habitat deep in a humid, shady woodland, the wild garlic brings a heavy and distinctive scent hanging over the whole area, which is wonderful if you like garlic but less so if you do not! Mrs Grieve was clearly not a fan as she states ‘Ramsons, the wild Wood Garlic, but for its evil smell would rank among the most beautiful of our British Plants’, and ‘…. Many [woods] are to be avoided when it is in flower, being so closely carpeted with the plants that every step taken brings out the offensive odour’. In amongst the garlic and anemones are patches of bright purple dog (or common) violets bringing an extra radiance to the woodland scene.
Professor Ian D. Rotherham, researcher, writer, broadcaster on wildlife and environmental issues in the Peak District and elsewhere, is contactable on ianonthewildside@ukeconet.org. Follow his website www.ukeconet.org, blog www.ianswalkonthewildside.wordpress.com/ & Twitter @IanThewildside
