Latest news with #TottingtonHighSchool
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
High school honoured with award
A high school has been recognised for its students' work within the community. Tottington High School has been honoured with Shaw Education Trust's Community Engagement Award. During the academic year, students have been involved in a range of community projects, including the spreading of festive cheer to staff and patients at Fairfield Hospital through the singing of Christmas carols and the delivery of presents. Students also undertook enrichment activities with residents at Abbeywood Residential Care Home, and donated a range of items to the Porchbox Appeal. The school played an important part in the dual ecological and historical project to redevelop Whitehead Gardens in Tottington. Working in partnership with Tottington Civic Pride, a VE Day celebration party for residents was arranged. Students supported the Tottington Litter Pickers in cleaning up the environment (Image: Supplied) Students helped to maintain the local environment in conjunction with the Tottington Litter Pickers. Fundraising also took place for Liv's Trust, a charity set up in memory of former Tottington High School student Olivia Campbell, 15, who tragically lost her life in the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017. Chair of trustees for Shaw Education Trust, Andrew Meehan, thanked all members of the trust. At Fairfield General Hospital, students sung Christmas carols, delivered Christmas cards and presents, and fundraised for the hospital (Image: Supplied) Personal development teacher Neil Wilson said: "This award is a testament to the amazing work that our students undertake in the community, and we would like to thank all of our community partners for their continued collaboration and support. "We look forward to establishing further community partnerships and continuing to support our students to become the changemakers of the future." More information about Shaw Education Trust is available at
BBC News
15-04-2025
- General
- BBC News
Bergen-Belsen: 'Seeing Nazi camp changed dad's view on the war'
Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions which may be distressing The daughter of a British soldier who helped liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp exactly 80 years ago said the "horrendous" scenes he witnessed there had changed his views about World War Two. Gunner Herbert Hurst, from Rossendale in Lancashire, was 36 when he entered the camp in Nazi Germany on 15 April 1945. "Before he went into Belsen, he didn't see the point of the war," explained Barbara Bell. "But when he saw the horror there - all the naked bodies piled up - he knew Adolf Hitler had to be defeated." 'Anne Frank' Gunner Hurst, along with other members of the 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment, discovered piles of rotting corpses and thousands of sick and starving prisoners enduring the camp's filthy, severely overcrowded compounds."I remember Dad saying he could smell the disease miles away from the camp," Mrs Bell was originally set up by the Nazis as a prisoner-of-war and internment camp. It was later used to house Jewish prisoners who had been transferred from across occupied Europe. Among the tens of thousands of people who died at Belsen were the young Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her sister were both transferred to Belsen from Auschwitz. 'Horrendous scenes' Mrs Bell said that while she and her siblings knew their father had been to Bergen-Belsen, they never spoke about it with him when they were growing up. "He never talked about it and we never asked," she said. "But Dad kept official photographs of Belsen and the scenes are horrendous."Later in life, though, when Mrs Bell was teaching history at Tottington High School in Bury, Greater Manchester, she persuaded him to record his memories so they could be shared with her pupils."It was then I discovered the full extent of all he'd suffered," she said. "It broke my heart to hear what he had to say but I don't think he ever wanted to talk about it again." After the war, Mrs Bell said her father returned to Lancashire to "get on with his life, his job in the shoe industry and bringing up his family".Mr Hurst died in 1995 at the age of 86. It was just a few weeks after the 50th anniversary of Bergen-Belsen's Bell said watching the commemorations on television had "brought everything back" to him, "all the emotion he felt in 1945".She added: "He didn't sleep that night."Dad was a gentle soul and he remembered what he saw at Belsen for the rest of his life."
