The Isle of Thanet Festival of Remembrance annual event has come to an end because there is no longer a suitable venue.
For more than 70 years the festival has staged the Royal British Legion’s second largest display of remembrance apart from the national commemorations held at the Royal Albert Hall.
But the closure of the Margate Winter Gardens has left the festival committee with no suitable venue for the annual event and the sad decision to close it down has been reached.
On Friday, 11 November, following a service of remembrance at the RBL Maurice House care home in Broadstairs, the IOT Festival Committee formally presented the home with a cheque for £1100 to mark the end of an era.
The Festival Committee says it can see no prospect for the refurbishment of the Winter Gardens taking place in the foreseeable future.
The last Festival of Remembrance was the 72nd and took place in October 2019. There still were a very large number of RBL standards on parade although in recent years the number of them had dropped owing to the formal closure of many RBL branches and veteran groups such as the Far East POW Association, the British Korean Veterans Association, Second World War campaign groups like the Burma Star organisation, as well as the amalgamation of numerous regimental organisations.
The last of the IOT Festivals in 2019 included a brilliant display by the Band of the Blues & Royals, perhaps the best military band performance ever held by the IOT Festival. Previous years also featured performances by the Gurkhas and their display team, and the bands of the Royal Marines, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Artillery, the Coldstream Guards, and dozens of others over the years.
The Military Wives Choir, the Legionnaires and local cadet groups also made regular appearances. Chelsea Pensioners regularly attended, to the delight of everyone present. The vicars of the Margate parish churches of St. Johns or All Saints normally led the service each year along with their choirs, and invariably each festival ended with a couple of hours of dancing and socialising amongst veterans, their families and friends.
The Isle of Thanet Festival of Remembrance was well supported by locals and others, including coachloads who came out to the Winter Gardens to see it.
The Festival incurred heavy expenses on securing the bands, many other of the featured events and rental of the building, and these costs rose over time, but in large measure due to programme sales, raffles and generous corporate and private donations, the Festival never sustained a loss.
Although originally founded as an independent organisation that supported a number of military charities, over the lifetime of the IOT Festival of Remembrance it raised many tens of thousands of pounds in support of the Royal British Legion.
The Festival was a regular fixture on the calendars for each successive National Chairman of the Royal British Legion, the Lord Lieutenant the County, local MPs, mayors and other dignitaries.
A committee spokesperson said: “ It is with great sorrow but no lack of commitment on the part of the director and committee that the Festival organisers have had to rest from their labours at present.
“They hope to resurrect the Festival should the opportunity arise to renew its work in an appropriate and affordable venue. The present committee, all unpaid volunteers, mainly consists of ex-service men and others, who have honoured the service community throughout long lives, but members then will be looking for new volunteers to carry that work forward. In the meanwhile, we hope the community will continue to support charities who serve the veterans’ community.”
The cheque at Maurice House was presented by the Director of the Festival, Peter Steele, picked by the previous long-serving director, the late Austin Walker, MBE, who had committed himself to lead Festival for more than twenty years.
Alongside Mr. Steele at the presentation were his deputy, John Pankhurst, and long-serving treasurer, Ela Lodge-Pritchard. Other members in attendance were Brian White, Geoff and Gwen Mullender, Kevin Minnis, and R. John Pritchard.
Receiving the presentation cheque on behalf of Maurice House were manager Tracy Tremble and business manager Sue Samuels.
