VE Day 80th anniversary, and other Brent history events for May

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

 

Title slide for VE Day anniversary talk at Kingsbury Library on 6 May.

 

The Spring 2025 “Your Brent” magazine promised ‘exciting events across Brent libraries commemorating the 80^th anniversary of VE Day’, and frontline staff at our Council-run libraries have been under pressure to deliver on that promise! As a result, I was asked (and agreed) to prepare an illustrated VE Day talk, which I will be presenting at a Kingsbury Library coffee morning event on Tuesday 6 May, from 11am to 12noon. If you would like to come, you can find out more and reserve your place using this “link”.

 

As the request was made at fairly short notice, I had to use some of my existing Second World War material in putting the powerpoint slide show together, including an article I wrote for the 75^th anniversary, as part of the 2020 weekly “local history in lockdown” series for Wembley Matters and Brent Archives. My talk will cover not only the celebrations in May 1945, but also the six years before that in Wembley and Willesden, and the slides may also be shown in other Brent libraries on Thursday 8 May. As my introductory slide makes clear, it is a talk that celebrates the end of war, not war itself.

 

 

 

The only other special event for the VE Day anniversary in Brent libraries that I am aware of is a lunchtime concert at Willesden Green Library on Thursday 8 May, from 12noon to 1pm. This free 1940s musical hour will be given by the Bluebelle Trio. For more details, and to reserve your place, “click” here.

 

The Bluebelle Trio (Image from the Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage Eventbrite page)

2025 is also the centenary of the second year of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park. Brent Civic Centre is on the site of part of that exhibition’s Palace of Industry, so it is appropriate that Wembley Library will be the venue for my talk on “A Day Out at Wembley Park in 1924”, on Tuesday 20 May, from 6.30 to 7.30pm.

 

Title slide for my talk at Wembley Library on 20 May.

 

This is almost the same presentation that I gave at a Kingsbury Library coffee morning in July last year, but by putting it on in the early evening, and in Wembley Park, I hope it will make it more accessible for people who are working during the day. If you would like to attend this guided tour, in pictures, around the 1924 exhibition you can reserve your free place here.

 

If you are interested in the British Empire Exhibition, and particularly in the part it played in 1920s British design, then Wembley History Society’s meeting on Friday 16 May may appeal to you. Dr Kathryn Ferry will be presenting an illustrated talk on “Wembley 1924 – The First Concrete City”. The meeting takes place from 7.30 to 9pm at St Andrew’s Church Hall, Church Lane, Kingsbury, and visitors are welcome. You can see more details on the poster below. [I have been watching some of the “Villages by the Sea” programmes on iPlayer recently, and Kathryn Ferry appears as a guest expert on seaside history in several of them, so I know that she is an excellent speaker!]

 

 

There are other Brent Libraries events, for both adults and children, which you can check out on the Libraries, Culture and Heritage Eventbrite page at any time, by using this quick “link”:

http://tinyurl.com/jjhjrrzs

 

I hope that at least some of these events will be of interest to you, and look forward to welcoming you, if one of mine finds its way into your calendar!

Philip Grant.