From the historian’s perspective, the Second World War, in the words of Al Murray, “is a bottomless pit.” With such a vast array of topics, how do you even attempt to bring this together in one festival? Well, the answer is that you don’t: you simply gather the best authors and speakers available and surround them with a remarkable collection re-enactors and equipment, as was done brilliantly at WeHaveWaysFest 2022.
This was an immersive experience, living history at its most vital. After I had hastily erected my tent on Friday evening, my induction was a display by The Garrison Artillery Volunteers lighting up the night sky with their 800 million candle search light, firing their 3.7” anti-aircraft gun. The festival goers applauded enthusiastically but their response left me cold: I couldn’t help but think that this very large, loud gun going off in the middle of the night is happening right now, many times over in Ukraine (and I doubt they’re clapping).
Al Murray
By intentionally not focusing on one theme, the array of panels and lectures was eclectic, from the familiar (Dunkirk, Churchill) to the choice of the intellectually curious, such as the Indian Army, the Citizen Army, The War in China and Spaniards in the British Army.
The highlight of the day was the remarkable interview between James Holland and Katrin Himmler, Heinrich Himmler’s great niece, on coming to terms with her family’s past. Her experience of discovering her family history as a child and then choosing to dig deeper into their past and face up to their actions was brave and compelling. Bringing it right up to the present day, she talked about “a lack of German honesty in the family” and how others are still not facing up their families’ pasts. In her view, most German families have yet to connect warm memories of grandparents on the one hand with the fact that most of them were, to greater or lesser extents, part of the enormous administrative and military machine of the Third Reich.
If the speakers were the festival’s building blocks, the groups of expert re-enactors occupying every corner of the festival’s grounds were the glue, binding it all together. These are people who have gone beyond a mere hobby, however, and their fanatical attention to detail is in no way contrived. The most impressive of these groups was Monty’s Men, who follow very precisely the training drills and tactical doctrine as it existed within 21st Army Group 1944-45. Part of that group is the AFPU (Army Film and Photography Unit) who talked me through their collection of Leica and DeVry cameras, including the DeVry camera used to film footage of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen in 1945.
A special mention goes to Corporal Stephen ‘Abs’ Wisdom who had set up a small display by the beer tent, talking us through equipment and tactics deployed by the Home Guard to stop invading tanks. I was told afterwards that some of these tactics are being used to train Ukrainians in the UK today.
James Holland
WeHaveWaysFest is inked with the hugely popular We Have We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast, co-hosted by Al Murray and James Holland. As co-hosts of the festival, they were a tour de force, being the cheerleaders one minute, panel members another, and in James’s case, giving a superb presentation on Dunkirk. Outside of the tents, they were informal, warm and approachable.
I left on Sunday with a sense that I had not just experienced living history, but moments that were very close to home. Hearing small arms gunfire as I walked to the car I thought again of the war in Ukraine. Laser-guided bombs and drones are all very well – on the ground, this war will be won using cheap to acquire, mass produced equipment. Whilst the weapons on display that we had been able to touch, learn about and hear being fired are clearly not the same, they bear a very close relation to what is currently being used.
This was an excellent festival: educating, entertaining, thought provoking, and fun. It felt far more established and confident for an event that is only in its second year. The schedule was slick, the facilities were immaculate, the food good, the ale plentiful (the festival site is shared with a brewery). I look forward to seeing what WeHaveWaysFest come up with next year!
Itinerant writer, serial entrepreneur and history enthusiast, Hector Macandrew is a sometime Aspects of History reporter and is currently co-founder of Manchester based fintech start-up, Hydr.
