Colin Crosby Heritage Tours

Margaret Tells of Prisoners of War

I went to another meeting of the Community History Network at the Reference Library in Leicester recently.

The speaker this time was Dr. Margaret Bonney, recently appointed Chief Archivist at the County Record Office.

Margaret`s talk was on the prisoners of war who were housed in camps around Leicestershire and Rutland during and after the Second World War.

The POWs were from Germany, Italy, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, and some were still here until 1948, three years after the war had ended.

Probably the best known of the camps was at Shady Lane in Evington.

The Community History Network is open to anybody with an interest in Local History. There is aways a talk by a local speaker.

I will be giving the December talk this year. Entitled "The Holly and the Ivy", it is about Christmas customs, but particularly those which have nothing really to do with Christmas as a religious celebration, but have been added.