Last Christmas (I gave you my heart!...sorry) I wrote upon this here blog about the whole festive experience of the wonderfully charming, and now probably quite iconic Yorkshire village of Haworth, and broadly speaking I rather loved it. However that was a new experience; the first time I had experienced that particular chestnut of the Haworth calendar. This though; this is how I first discovered Haworth years ago, this was a key factor in me falling in love with the place, this is what I have been re-visiting annually for some time; this is the renowned and now hugely popular 1940s weekend. Thus I thought I would give you a quick run down of my experience this year.
In a nutshell - it is a great day out, well and truly. I know almost every place wishing to attract tourists says that, but in this case it really is so. What the people and establishments of Haworth have got so right, i.e the feel, the scale, the intricacy and authenticity of this event, they strive to maintain, whilst always looking to expand. As I say I have been attending this event for several years now, and it never ceases to amaze me, nor to put a huge smile on my face. The many great staples are there; decked-out decorations, vintage vehicles abound, Glen Miller in the background, oodles of patriotic pomp and circumstance, and of course the masses of ladies and gents in period dress of one form or another (I keep saying I need to give that bit a go!). Yet this year, as with all the years gone by, there are noticeably new factors as well as a note-worthy and valiant attempt to increase the scale and feel of the whole thing. For me, the highlights of these newly discovered aspects were various Alan Turing exhibits, as well as a life-sized Spitfire boldly and proudly standing in a small square off the main street.
It would be virtually impossible to go into all the avid detail of the Howarth 1940s experience, and to show you all the larvely pictures I took (there were a great deal more than this - I struggled to cut it down to the essentials!). I also feel it would be wrong of me to try, as this truly is, again clichéd as it may sound, a marvelous feat that one should really experience for one's self. The only slight negative is that the event now seems to have garnered so much popularity, that parking in and exploring the village has become quite a hectic, labored and slightly claustrophobic task. In essence this is me just being pedantic, and is really not much to moan about, not when you consider the massive positives, which believe me there surely are when one visits Howarth, particularly when it is time for the 1940s to be remembered and celebrated.
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