Shedding light on history and art in Hatfield

PUPILS have been getting to grips with art and history at an ongoing event based on the beacon.

On Thursday pupils at Green Lanes Primary School in Hatfield were treated to a morning learning about the navigation aid used to guide pilots around the country from the 1930s.

The youngsters made and decorated beacons, with the help of artists Suzy Drake and Jo Taylor, and learned about the old airfield and plane factory at the de Havilland site.

George Woodcraft, who helped organise the event with Hatfield residents’ project Flight Test Hangar, said: “The children now know that Geoffrey de Havilland was a keen entomologist and that the town’s streets are named after aeroplanes made on the site and also after plants, which was another interest of de Havilland.”

Dennis Pedley, headteacher of the Broad Acres school, told the Welwyn Hatfield Times: “All 45 of our year five children had the unique opportunity of taking part in art workshops creating objects linked to the shape of the old beacon on the de Havilland airfield.

“The children were involved in weaving a wide range of materials around old bicycle wheels shape in the frame of the beacon.”

Mr Pedley added: “They thoroughly enjoyed the experience and were particularly taken with the fact that they had been working with real artists!”

The art work will be displayed at various community events in the coming weeks.

For more information, call Anji Archer on 07885 106057.