A HEREFORD community group is celebrating £10k lottery win today

The Friends of Castle Green had a flutter on the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to get money from the “First World War – then and now” grant programme.

Their project “Welcome to the World of the Canary Girls – Hereford in WW1”, will be launched at their annual Summer Fayre on Hereford’s Castle Green on Saturday, June 28.

Against a backdrop of period trappings, the Young Bloods Theatre Company will  present excerpts from The Canary Girls,  a new play telling the story of the 4000 women – and men – who worked at the Rotherwas Munitions Factory in the two world wars. 

Young Bloods is a new young company in Hereford specialising in  work about local history and heritage and currently based in Castle Green Pavilion.

The full play will premiere at The Courtyard from September 16th – 20th 2014.

“We are so excited to have received this grant,” said Annabel Oxford, project co-ordinator for the Friends.

“Now we shall be able to discover more about the lives of these incredible women, who risked their lives for their country – right here in Hereford!” she said.

Anyone who may have personal photographs, stories or archive material about the munitions factory or their relatives that worked there can contact the project through the Friends of Castle Green website – www.friendsofcastlegreen.org.uk