TOWNSFOLK can take a step back in time to the 1940s at a top town museum.

Avoncroft Museum, in Stoke Heath, is running the event on Saturday, July 29, and Sunday, July 30. The museum is playing host to the World War II Historical Society, which will be masterminding a weekend of reminiscences and memories of the 1940s.

More than 100 re-enactors will be re-living the war years. The event includes exhibits such as the original Dad's Army van, as well as a variety of old military vehicles. The Austin 7 & 10 club will also be present with a display of its vehicles, as well as Post Office vehicles.

To support this there will be mock small arms battles, and displays about the Land Army, as well as the Royal Navy static display.

There will be dance band tunes from the 40s and a mock wedding, in keeping with the period, at Bringsty Church.

The museum will also be host to the Bromsgrove at War exhibition, which is on loan from Bromsgrove Museum.

Featuring prominently during the weekend will be Avoncroft's own piece of 1940s history, the prefab which is 40 years old this year.

The prefab was originally in Moat Lane, Yardley, near Birmingham, and when it was going to be demolished found its way to the museum in the 1980s. The prefab is the Arcon Mark V, which was the most popular type of prefab built in Britain.

Made in factories, transported to site and then erected, they made a major difference to families who came to live in them. They formed the basis for house design throughout the rest of the 20th century with the fitted cupboards and wardrobes and even central heating. However, the kitchen was the feature that everyone remembers being really the first fitted kitchen the housewife had known and coming as it did with a built in refrigerator it was the height of luxury.

Built to last ten years only there are still pockets of them being lived in today.