THE streets of Pickering were packed as the Ryedale town took its annual trip back in time.

The wartime weekend kicked off on Friday with the raising of a Union Flag, a speech by Winston Churchill, and the transport of a group of evacuee children up the North York Moors Railway to Levisham. 

The annual festival, staged the North Yorkshire Moors Railway with help from businesses across the town, transforms Pickering and other villages on the Moors railway into 1940's timewarps.

Neil Armstrong is part of Pickering's business group, and for the first time this year members helped the railway out with event organisation. Businesses took over the closed tourist information centre in Pickering, and on Saturday saw a stream of locals and visitors turn to the centre to find out what was going on, and to get their hands on the special wartime weekend newspaper.

Mr Armstrong said: "It has gone really well this weekend - it's been excellent. I can't pick a highlight because the whole weekend has been the highlight.

"On Saturday the weather was lovely, no problem whatsoever, and although it was a bit rainy on Sunday I think we've been quite lucky.

"That was a relief, because one thing the 1940s weren't good at was waterproof clothing."

The well-established event draws people from all over Britain and Ireland and even further afield, with an ever-growing variety of period costumes and re-enactors.

Mr Armstrong added: "You name it, we've got it. There have been a couple of French ladies of the night wandering around Pickering, and this year there have been a lot of 1940s policemen and even a coal miner - I've never seen him before."

Plans are already afoot to make next year's event even bigger and better, Mr Armstrong added, and organisers are determined to bring back the popular parade of vehicles, which this year had to be cancelled on cost grounds.