Silverwings Exhibition September 2025

The C&TA trustees were honoured to be asked by the Forum Trust and American Library in Norwich to help put together a costume display as part of the Silverwings Exhibition mounted in the Forum to mark the 80th anniversary of the 'friendly invasion' of USAF personnel to East Anglian Airfields during WWII.  

The free Exhibition filled the Forum Atrium and Gallery for nine days of special events and thousands of people visited to remember and share stories and recollections of different experiences of wartime Britain.

We also offered visitors the chance to try on WWII outfits, and a collection of Hollywood dressmaking patterns prompted many memories of rationing, and how women would make-do and mend.  The wedding dress in the picture below was made from parachute silk.  Another had images of humpty dumpty woven into the silk, demonstrating the creativity and ability to make something beautiful out of the most unlikely materials and in the toughest circumstances.

It was clear that the exhibition was extremely successful as many people stood and talked about their parents' experiences and remembered their own childhoods.  Whilst for the younger generation seeing photographs, artefacts  and original clothes worn by the young people of the 1940s brought the wartime era sharply into focus and their stories came to life again.

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