Preston Remembers - Candlelit vigil

4th August 2014 - Cenotaph, flag market Preston. Preston Remembers - Candlelit vigil. A wonderful, truly magical evening organised by Preston City Council. Beautiful evening weather wise, with many Chinese fire lanterns drifting across the evening sky in the distance. A rare occasion when I wish I had a Nikon for low light photography! Majority of these pictures courtesy of Emerson Utracik.

Re-enactment - Preston Railway Station

Rev Richard Cook the Railway Chaplain organised this on the Railway station as part of the 100-year commemoration of the start of WWI. There was a re-enactment of taking the King's shilling, then a service followed by a wreath-laying ceremony in front of the Preston Pals memorial.

Memorial service, Preston Station 23/07/2014

Memorial service on Wednesday, in attendance was Lord Lieutenant, The High Sheriff of Lancashire, The Mayor of Preston and many other distinguished guests. The 23rd July was when most of 'D' Company of the Loyal North Lancashire regiment were killed or wounded in the battle of Bazentin-le-Petit on the Somme in 1916.

Miller Park floral tribute 03/07/2014

On the 3 July 2014 at noon, His Worshipful Mayor of Preston Nick Pomfret 'unveiled' a floral tribute to the Preston Pals as part of their contribution to the WWI remembrance. Here are some pictures of the event. It is in the flowerbed in front of the statue of the Earl of Derby.

Armed Forces day 2014

Preston Flag Market, Saturday 28th June. Selection of photos of people including the 99th Garrison (Star Wars) and the WWII re-enactment society with lots of other attractions to be seen. Flypast at 3pm was supposed to be a spitfire, but Hurricane turned up instead.

Cenotaph rededication 2014

The rededication ceremony took place today on the flag market, Preston at 12.45pm, 80 years after the original dedication and unveiling ceremony by Lord Jellicoe. The old post office behind has also had a good clean up as well.

I am honoured to make this tribute to Joe on behalf of members, both past and present, of the Preston Historical Society and the Trustees of the Preston Pals War Memorial Trust.

The Preston Historical Society was founded in 1948 and Joe was soon involved serving as Secretary in those early years and then as President in 1976 and 2002. His main contribution to the work of the Society was photographing and recording the changes to the buildings of Preston for posterity.

The first meetings were held in the Children's Library in the Harris and Joe dealt with Miss Jane Downton who was then the Chief Librarian of Preston and President of the Historical Society. Other venues which Joe was involved in setting up included the Lillian Wood Memorial Hall behind the old Post Office in Market Street; Grimshaw Street School; The Conservative Club in Guildhall Street; and the Stanley Arms in Lancaster Road. Joe told the story about one Lady member – all women were Ladies to Joe – leaving the Stanley Arms after a meeting when she was confronted by a man with a knife! Needless to say the Society stopped using that venue.

Joe also worked closely with Beth Hayes and Marian Roberts, who were both pillars of the Preston Historical Society and the local history community for many years. As was his custom he supported them with his usual charm and modesty. Because of Joe's interest and background in all things military one of his talks to the Society members concerned the tracing of military ancestors, which is very much in vogue today. His commitment and service of more than sixty years was recently recognised with Honorary Life

Membership of Preston Historical Society.

Though easing off his involvement with the Historical Society in his later years Joe continued his work as a volunteer at the Queen's Lancashire Regiment Museum in Fulwood Barracks, until April this year. And as if this was not enough Joe regularly attended meetings of the Western Front Association and was an active member of the Civic Trust.

Though Joe and I had never worked together, either with the Preston Historical Society or at the Fulwood Museum, this was about to change. On my reading a letter in the Lancashire Evening Post some three years ago about there being no War Memorial in Preston to the memory of the Preston Pals, I decided the this serious omission would be rectified, and with the help of like-minded people, including Joe, of course, offering special guidance and advice, next year will see the our plans come to fruition. Joe typically had already helped David Huggonson, a student at UCLAN, with his thesis on the Preston Pals, which will form part of a book to be published in 2012.

Our first formal committee meeting with Joe and three others in attendance was held in April 2010. The design for the Memorial, its location on Preston Railway Station, fundraising and myriad other matters were all discussed in detail. As you can imagine Joe was tremendously enthusiastic and contributed soundly to a very successful meeting. He was also a great help in ensuring that the elements within the design of Memorial should be as accurate as possible.

I was getting to know Joe better every meeting. His input, guidance and advice to me were invaluable. There were several visits to his home, which I likened to a very large filing cabinet with each room being a separate drawer but he knew where everything was! I don't envy Gillian and Ian sorting out all Joe's many years' collections, but I am sure the Lancashire Record Office and the Regimental Museum would be interested in some of the material. Joe alsomanaged to attend our second Committee meeting last October at which the design for the Memorial was finalised. Earlier this year Joe was interviewed about his life by Emma Alsop, a Journalist student at