Camborne Youth Band's race night

Great to see Camborne Youth Band fundraising like mad for their trip to the Menin Gate, Ypres, and the World War One battlefields this August.
It's such a great honour for the Band to play at the Menin Gate - and it's even more exciting as in the Youth Band is the great great grandson of Fred Negus, a tin miner who signed up in 1914 and served at the Front throughout the war. The Band will take Fred's bugle back to the Front: it's currently being refurbished, ready to play.
To listen to Ralph Williams, Fred Negus's grandson, talking about the project, click here. 
Click here to contribute to the Band's travel costs.
Bridging Arts will be travelling with the Band and stage an exhibition at Heartlands, Pool, Cornwall afterwards - to display archival material and 21st century reactions to such historic sites. Watch this space.

Heart of Conflict rugby match recreated.....

BBC Cornwall’s Hannah Stacey has created a wonderful feature around the Heart of Conflict story of the rugby matches at the Front played in 1915 after Camborne Rugby Club sent out a ball to local men who had signed up. Three matches between Cornish and Devon soldiers were played.

This story, which started with the discovery of a newspaper cutting in the West Briton (May 1915) has grown and grown. The latest discovery: two more grandsons of men who played and a great great grandson - a budding young musician in Camborne Youth Band.

To listen to the original feature, click here.
Derek Head and Chris Negus, the grandsons of two of the men who played are interviewed – as well as local historian Paddy Bradley and Martin Woolcock, who currently plays for Camborne RFC.

We'll be building on this work in 2018 as we're working with Camborne Youth Band, who've been invited to play at the Menin Gate, Ypres, in August. To find out more - and to support the Band (who are working hard to raise funds to pay for the trip), click on this link.

Heart of Conflict resources at Paul Church

Delighted to hear from project organiser Sarah Stevens that Paul Church, near Mousehole in Cornwall, will be able to make use of our Heart of Conflict resources in its fantastic work to restore a World War One memorial window in memory of a local resident, Torquil Bolitho.

More about the project here.

We've kept in touch over the four years that Heart of Conflict has been developing. A group from the church came to visit us at the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro. 

And at the very start of Heart of Conflict in 2014 I visited Paul Church and heard from Rev Andrew Yates about the planned work on the window. More about that here.  At that stage, it was hard to imagine how the money was going to be raised - but it has been thanks to Andrew and his team's commitment.

Heart of Conflict: resources for schools on World War One in Cornwall

We’re just launching the next stage of work in Heart of Conflict, our project on World War One in Cornwall. We’ll be working with young people and schools – in particular Camborne Youth Band which will be travelling to the Menin Gate, Ypres, in August 2017.

We’ve produced two Education Packs and a range of fascinating Fact Sheets as general background.

To read through all the resources that we’ve produced so far, click through to the Heart of Conflict website.

And please do check out the Youth Band's fundraising page - they're working hard to raise money for the trip.

Camborne Youth Band to the Menin Gate - interview on BBC Radio Cornwall

Great to go to BBC Radio Cornwall for an interview with Ralph Williams on Debbie McCrory's afternoon show.  Click on the link below to listen....

We're working with Camborne Youth Band in the next stage of our project Heart of Conflict, looking at people's memories of World War One in Cornwall 100 years on from the conflict.
All sorts of exciting discoveries have recently emerged: the great great grandson of Fred Negus (a Camborne man who served throughout the war) plays for Camborne Youth Band.
The Band has been invited to play at the Menin Gate at Ypres, Belgium, this August - a huge honour.
And they will take Fred Negus's bugle (brought back safely from France) and play it.
We're just helping to launch a fundraising page to help cover the band's costs. For more information, click here.