FOR a weekend, a small North Yorkshire town stepped back into the dark days of wartime Britain.
Helping to create the nostalgic atmosphere in Pickering for its 1940s War Weekend were Huddersfield-based cabaret group Miscellany.
Miscellany is a group of semi-professional singers and performers brought together by Shepley-based teacher and musical director Cath Stevenson.
They stage concerts and cabaret style performances across the region, many of them in aid of charities.
For the Pickering weekend, Cath put together a programme of Forties songs, music and monologues.
The Pickering weekend attracts visitors from all over the UK who arrive in Pickering dressed in the costumes of the era.
The streets are packed with soldiers, sailors, airmen, and colourful characters in addition to vehicles of the period, fully restored Jeeps, lorries, troop transporters, cars and of course the North Yorkshire Moors Railway company who run regular steam train trips.
Lisa Kendall, one of the Miscellany performers said: “It was absolutely wonderful to be singing such classics as We’ll Meet Again and Pack Up Your Troubles whilst looking out into an audience of soldiers, sailors and ladies dressed in 1940s style. It was so atmospheric and at times very moving.”
“We met and spoke with several people on the train who attend these events all over the country,” said Cath Stevenson.
“It seems quite surreal when you are sitting in an old railway carriage chatting with a couple in immaculate RAF uniforms and across the aisle is a 1940s ‘bobby’ in a cape and a spiv with nylons hanging out of his pocket. Then you see a family walk up the aisle with a little boy in 1940s short breeches wearing a gas-mask box around his neck.”
Miscellany went down so well that they have already been booked for a return visit to Pickering next year.
The group say they are being asked to theme their evenings more often. Their next venture is a Victorian Music Hall event in Crosby, near Liverpool in later this month.
For more details on Miscellany contact Cath Stevenson on 07889-334169 or email her on catherine-stevenson@o2.co.uk
