College and Children’s University to Commemorate VE Day at Home

Blackburn College University Centre is teaming up with Blackburn Children’s University to take part in a Stay at Home VE Day Party.

The stay at home party will take place on Friday 8th May 2020 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day, as part of the Heritage Lottery Funded WWII East Lancashire Childhoods: Sharing Stories, Making Memories project.

The event will see staff and students from the University Centre at Blackburn College and children from Blackburn Children’s University have picnics or afternoon tea in their homes or gardens, make bunting and flags, bake buns and write poetry.

Participants will be asked to share their VE Day moments by sending in photographs and short videos.

Project Leads Sandra Nichol, Lecturer in BA (Joint Honours) Pathways, and Dr Valerie Jessop, Programme Leader BA (Joint Honours), Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics, said: “We are looking forward to seeing all the photographs and videos of people commemorating the event in their own homes. These will be used to create a digital record of people’s activities and will be posted on our project website.”

Sara Burton, Blackburn Children’s University Manager, said: “This is a little bit different than what we had planned, but we still wanted to commemorate this momentous event. Children from Blackburn Children’s University have already been completing various challenges like painting pebbles red, white and blue, writing letters and making poppies.

“For VE Day we will be encouraging our members to make bunting, party hats and even have a picnic at home. I can’t wait to see the pictures and videos of how they are all commemorating this event.”

The Sharing Stories, Making Memories project is an inter-generational community arts project which commemorates the events of WWII. For more information visit smallstories.blackburn.ac.uk.

The project’s original VE Day 75th anniversary commemoration was initially set to take place at the College’s University Centre but was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.