Villagers in Tilford braced themselves for the rumbling of heavy trucks as American and British forces made their way into the village. In 2025, the Rural Life Museum hosted the 25th anniversary of Village at War, alongside the 80th anniversary of VE Day. This immersive event, running on Saturday and Sunday, May 10 to 11, brought history to life with military encampments, RAF plotting rooms, bomb disposal demonstrations, wartime rationing, and air raid chaos. Visitors enjoyed 1940s music at the Frensham dance hall, surprise air raids, and those wishing to truly experience the atmosphere dressed in period clothes.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00You
00:18Razor, you're going off into the realms of fantasy
00:22Don't tell his reverence
00:30My sister Dolly wouldn't like that
00:36Sister Dolly, we're doomed, we're all doomed
00:52Keep your eyes peeled
01:22Everyone's tied
01:24Step Rd
01:30There's aellen soul
01:33Step Rd
01:36Step Rd
01:44Step Rd
01:46Step Rd
01:48Watch backs
01:50Andy Hop!
02:00Andy Hop!
02:02All right, Adam.
02:04What?
02:06What?!
02:07Hang on.
02:12Andy Hop!
02:16Come on, let's go, let's go.
02:46Let's say that people don't forget the sacrifice of 80 odd years ago, and before.
03:07This year's VE80, and it's actually the 25th event we've run here.
03:12So we need to keep the spirit alive, especially we can, in the way we do it, which is recreating,
03:19try to recreate the atmosphere with the GIs, with the Tommies, and the Polish, and the home
03:26front.
03:27Just give someone a little taste of what it may have been like back in 1944, 1945.
03:33Right, I've got the old washboard here, because I got bombed out, and these are all made feel
03:42longings.
03:43I've got all my clothes in here, I've got my radio, my jam, and my salt spoons, and my newspapers.
03:49Oh, I'm not forgetting my bottle of gin.
03:53Bye.
03:54Bye.
03:55Bye.
03:56Bye, bye.
04:00Bye, bye.
04:05Bye.