We are absolutely delighted that Keighley Town Council came up trumps again and gave us the money to print off the banners for our SOMME 100 – KEIGHLEY’S MEN Exhibition that will run from 2nd July to 19th November this year, it will be 100 years since the Battle of the Somme and our exhibition runs for the same length of time as the whole Somme offensive lasted in 1916.
We will have a dozen banners, one for each pillar of Keighley Library’s Local Studies Room upstairs. If we have enough money we hope to have one other banner to use as an advert downstairs.
Each banner will run in sequence chronologically and they will contain an entire transcript of the ‘Local War Casualties’ column from the Keighley News of the time, including all the men who were involved and had their names in the newspaper of the time. We will supplement this transcription with other information and photographs where we can to create a unique exhibition of the local contribution to the battle. We believe that this exhibition will do those men proud and help to inform many people about what happened 100 years ago this year.
We have also ordered from the Imperial War Museum, the film “The Battle of the Somme” which has been digitally remastered and with a specially commissioned new soundtrack (it was a silent film). We hope to be able to show it in the library during the centenary of the battle to complement our exhibition.
