Hoby Entertains Again: Curtain’s up – 100 years late


 

 


Hoby Entertains Again: Curtain’s up – 100 years late

Hoby Entertains Again 2017 - cast and helpers

Hoby Entertains Again 2017 – cast and helpers

Grantham Journal 24th February 1917

In 1917 a crowded, enthusiastic audience in the village of Hoby enjoyed an evening of light entertainment to raise funds for the Mayor of Leicester’s £100,000 Fund created for local wounded soldiers.

The notice in the Grantham Journal led to research into this partiuclar fundraising event involving library and other records throughout the country.

The positive newspaper reviews said it should be repeated again in the neighbourhood. So, 100 years late, the Hoby & District History Society has done just that on two evenings in September 2017. The event  recreated the atmosphere of 1917 community that was trying to find some respite in the midst of traumatic times.

A full programme had musical songs of the period, a very amusing comic recitation by WS Gilbert and two short playlets re-discovered by the Society: one about two confirmed bachelor brothers doing their best to avoid marriage to a young heiress; the other about two women trying to cope with a robotic domestic helper – this could have been written today!

See the complete performance on Youtube  here. Please share this link on facebook etc.

This event was free through the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund. As per the 1917 event profit from a bar and donations were collected and raised over £1000 for The Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre (DNRC). This was a particularly appropriate charity as the DNRC’s aims are similar to the Lord Mayor of Leicester’s appeal 100 years ago. In addition it will be located on the Stanford Hall estate, in Stanford-on-Soar near Loughborough, about 10 miles from Hoby. The site itself had to provide a mature and tranquil landscape setting to support the holistic healing processes of rehabilitation, whilst being sufficiently close to an urban centre to ensure that patients did not feel remote.

The Stanford Hall Estate has the capacity to support both the Defence establishment and future national facility in a single site which will be vital in promoting the transfer and sharing of knowledge. Most importantly the site is large enough to be able to accommodate all the planned development without diminishing the character of the open parkland landscape setting, which will play such an important role in supporting patient rehabilitation.

Follow the following links for more information: