National Motor Museum Trucks & Troops
From the 29th – 31st May 2010, the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu is playing host to Trucks & Troops, staged by the South Hampshire Area of the Military Vehicle Trust.
This year, in the 65th anniversary year of VE Day, the WAVE 105 Cash for Kids charity is inviting 65 children to take part in a special celebration street party at the event. The children will be tucking into some food favourites from the 40s including spam sandwiches, jam tarts and jelly! In case the party fare is not quite to modern tastes, Sainsburys is giving each child a goody bag of 21st century food favourites to take home.
Special guest, Esther Rantzen, will be joining the party and giving each child a VE Day celebration mug.
In addition to over 250 military vehicles on display, re-enactment groups, wearing wartime regimental uniforms, will be re-creating camps and situations in which they would have lived and served. On the arena there will be a full programme of activities including parades of vehicles, displays and marching bands providing musical entertainment. Take time to walk around the militaria stalls with a variety of goods for sale from a gas mask to a Jeep!
At 1.10pm on Saturday 29th watch a fly-past by a Lancaster from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. On Sunday 30th, at 4.35pm, it will be the turn of a Dakota.
Activities for younger visitors include a Commando Assault Course, a Model Boat Pond and Model Tank Village plus, new for 2010, a Mini Tank Driving Experience, driving a tracked tank around a course - guaranteed to be great fun! There will also be an opportunity to dress up in Army camouflage, including camo face paint, and take part in a patrol with real soldiers from the modern British Army.
On Sunday 30th May, David Montgomery, 2nd Viscount Montgomery of Alamein CMG, CBE, son of the famous WWll field marshal, Bernard Montgomery (known to his troops as ‘Monty’), will visit the event. He will be driven around the show in the 1939 Rolls Royce his father used as his staff car during the 1944-45 North West Europe Campaign. At 11.15am, Viscount Montgomery will lay a wreath at the memorial to the Special Operations Executive in Beaulieu Abbey Cloisters.
Visitors to the show can also see all the other Beaulieu attractions including the National Motor Museum’s latest exhibition ‘ProMotion’ and World of Top Gear, Palace House and 13th century Beaulieu Abbey.
Not to be missed is the Secret Army Exhibition which tells the story of wartime Beaulieu and the training of secret agents to work with the Resistance in occupied Europe during WWll.
The show is open from 10am each day with plenty of free parking. For more information, visit beaulieuevents.co.uk.
