It was a very busy session today and we also had two new members join the group. Lisa introduced the session and gave some great advice to everyone on how best to avoid the Chinese flu called Coronavirus which is spreading at the moment.

Lisa had to leave early for a meeting in London so Muz and Faz from Ping is King ran the rest of the session. As the 75th Anniversary after the Second World War is approaching, James kicked off the session with a fascinating reading about the V2 missile bombings in the war. He gave a recollection of a horrifying incident on the 27th January 1945 when he was at the Savoy Cinema with his younger cousin. They were aged 10 and 8 at the time. There was a huge explosion which brought down the cinema and James and his cousin remember the devastation it caused and the number of people who died. They were lucky but this is a memory they will not forget. A full transcript of James story is below.

Brian also brought in some incredible old pictures of his time in the RAF and shared them around. There were helicopters and planes that had crash landed and it was amazing to hear the stories and see these gripping events captured in real life photos.

Muz and Faz then handed out some colouring and word searches for members. The theme for these activities was the Chinese New Year. This theme continued with a fun packed quiz on China. The quiz was really well received with just the right mix of easy and hard questions, with lots of clues to make sure everyone had a chance. It was lovely to see Krishma getting actively involved. She loved shouting out the correct answers to several questions.

After the quiz, it was Aaron’s turn to entertain everyone and he hosted a lovely afternoon of music entertainment. Everyone had a really enjoyable afternoon with lots of singing and dancing to old classics. There was a technical glitch at one point but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it gave Ernie the chance to take the microphone and sing a lovely Irish song. I later found out that Ernie used to follow his dad around when his dad was performing in pubs which is why he had such a great voice.

Thank you to all our volunteers today, Melvyn, Annette, Marina, Arzu, Angela, Risom and of course Lisa and Mark.