Whitehaven Town Council to host D-Day memorial event

This will be held in the town centre on June 6 which marks the anniversary of D-Day, one of the most pivotal moments of the Second World War. 

Gerard Richardson, who is helping the council to organise the event, said: "June 6 is the anniversary of D-Day and it's commemorating what is one of the biggest land invasions in history.

"What councils around the country are going to do is hold national celebrations, which we will be taking part in at Whitehaven by lighting a beacon in St Nicholas' Gardens in the early evening.

"We'll be hosting a ceremony for people to watch and take part in and we're hoping that the army and navy cadets will take part as well. 

"We're planning to have a marquee in the gardens and use the white sides of the marquee to project moving images of D-Day of the landings on the beach, so there'll be something interactive for the public. 

"There'll be a formal reading that the town crier will do, which we'd like the cadets to be involved with and St Nicholas' tower will be lit up like it was for the King's Coronation. 

"That will be illuminated red, white, and blue for several nights so it will be nice and photogenic for people so folk will be able to come along and take pictures. 

"We're also planning for a few days before June 6 to use one of the marquees to host an exhibition and we're in talks with the royal engineers about doing something with them, it's early stages yet but we hope it will all come off. 

"We'd ask the public to mark the date in their diary and come down.

"Acknowledging D-Day is as important now as it ever was especially when the world has never seemed so dangerous and the leaders of Nato are saying that we might end up in a conflict with Russia in the next five years. 

"One of the things that we all need to do is to start talking about the armed forces more."