GHODs announce details of free events programme
By Gaye Spencer
GOSPORT HERITAGE OPEN DAYS (GHODs) have announced they will be hosting a total of seventy-two free events / activities as they join the country’s biggest festival of history and culture; which will take place over a nine day period from September 6 to 15.
This year’s annual selection of events are themed around “Routes – Networks – Connections”; which will mark how people / ideas have moved around and come together throughout history. This includes transport routes, communication networks, trade unions and social clubs; the local organisers aiming to feature this in their calendar of free activities.
Visitors can enjoy 36 new events this year ranging from navigating Gosport by Nose to hearing about toffs / toilets and learning about the significance of the Gosport Lines. Rowner is further celebrated in four different ways with exhibition in the church and another in the Rowner Youth Arts & Media Centre; as well as tours of Fort Rowner and a guided walk through Rowner’s history.
For the first time Fort Brockhurst will be having two days with soldiers, rifles, canons and Luftwaffe pilots reenacting the Fort’s entire history. Local Victorian philanthropist Henry Cook will be celebrated throughout the festival at the Imagination Refinery on the High Street with activities, art, quizzes and even a couple of guest appearances!
The 80th anniversary of D-Day in Gosport will be celebrated with talks of spies and ‘derring do’ featuring in the list of events; whilst there is also set to be an exhibition showing historical photos of Gosport during WW2. Other photographic and knitting displays will be available for people to explore alongside radio-controlled model ships and tanks; which will show how Allied forces landed on French soil and attacked a French village occupied by German Forces.
A full printed programme was first made available at the Provincial Bus Rally on Stokes Bay last weekend (August 4) and is now within available in other locations across Gosport. Residents are urged to collect / secure their copies as soon as possible to prepare for online / phone bookings to begin from 9:30am on August 17 (Saturday).
People are asked to have certain information when booking their spot on any event; including ID, names of those within the parties, timings and dates. The Imagination Refinery will have volunteers who can help make bookings for those with accessibility issues only.
PICTURED BY GHODS: Practice makes perfect as Fort Brockhurst prepares for events to be held at the venue over nine days in September.
