Mary Smith is the former Headteacher of Maidstone Grammar School for Girls and will be giving a talk about ‘A Schoolgirl’s War’.

This tells the story of school life during WW2 and features the recently discovered and exquisite artwork of wartime school art teacher Helen Keen, who set out to document in paint and pencil the lives of school children and their teachers as the war unfolded. Her work features in paint the disrupted schooling, air-raids, doodlebugs, and underground lessons in shelters which were experienced by so many children.

Trawling through dusty artefacts in the school Mary discovered an old cardboard box which contained Miss Keen’s ‘War Diary’ – a unique scrapbook of paintings and sketches which detailed a record of the school on a day-to-day basis throughout the war.

Tickets are £5 (general admission), on sale from 14th September, with a pre-release of reduced tickets at £4.00 for members of the Friends of Folkestone Museum on sale now. Refreshments will be available after the talk.

TO BOOK TICKETS AND THE TWO OPTIONS TO BUY follow the link to www.wegottickets.com/events/555145/ OR email friendsfolkmuseum@gmail.com for enquires and details, should you wish to reserve tickets and pay on the day [tickets are NOT available from the Town Hall reception desk].