Chelmsley Residents Serenaded For Remembrance

Eighty one year old evacuee, Beryl Keating from Chelmsley Wood, joined other senior citizens and Grace Academy students at a musical tea party to commemorate Remembrance Day.

Beryl Keating, whose father was in a bomb disposal unit during the war, joined other guests to be serenaded over tea and cake by West End performer and producer Adam Hepkin, Grace Academy’s new Artistic Director.

Adam Mr Hepkin brought back memories of the war with a repertoire of songs from the 1940s including ‘Some Enchanted Evening’, and Vera Lynn’s ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ and ‘I’ll Walk Beside You’.

Sharing her experiences of the war with students, Beryl Keating said: “During the war the songs were all that used to keep us going.  We used to go down to the shelters every night and be there from 4.30pm until 6.30am the next morning.  By 1940 everyone was asked if they wanted to be evacuated and I went to stay with my own grandmother as an evacuee in Tewkesbury for six months. I remember Cadbury’s used to send us hot chocolate to the school two or three times a week.”

Student Katerina Bellou who attended the tea party said: “I loved doing this event because it was lovely to hear stories from these people who have had lives that were so different from mine”