ARMED Forces Day went off was a sell out success in Salisbury at the weekend as the national event celebrated the work present and past of military personnel.

Flypasts from the Red Arrows entertained the crowds and veterans joined 1300 military personnel in Saturday’s parade through the centre before a host of live acts filled Hudson’s Field with music including headliners Kaiser Chiefs.

It has taken a year of planning and hundreds of volunteers to organise the event, held in the city that just 12 months ago was recovering from the Nerve Agent attack.

Over 42,000 people visited over the sunny weekend as temperatures soared to 28.5 degrees.

15,000 pints were sold by Wadworth with 5p from every pint donated to military charity SSAFA (Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association).

A BBQ was held on Friday for serving personnel and their families.

There were live acts across several stages, military dogs shows, hot air balloons and even big bangs as two 25 Pounder Gun-howitzer were fired in Hudson’s Field.

One of the event’s key organisers Alistair Cunningham said the event is a ‘huge thank you’ to everyone, military and civilian, who responded to the Salisbury incident in the city last year.

He added: “This is the perfect way to say thankyou to everyone involved in the events of last year and the work of the military in helping Salisbury.

“It is brilliant to see businesses networking and talking about how to improve the economy and get Salisbury back to where we want it to be.

“They are working to bring in more investment to south Wiltshire. This shows how far we have come since last year One year ago a lot of the same people were working so hard to respond to the Salisbury incident and now this is the chance to say Thank you and put on this event for them.We are celebrating everything the military have done over the last 100 years, all the way up to last year’s incident and the military is evolving and it is showing here.”

John Shere from Cambridgshire was manning the Royal Observer Corps tent to remember the work done between 1925 and 1995 by the Coorps.

The civil defence organisation was used to track and identify enemy aircraft and are sharing the story of 796 volunteers who provided expert work to spot aircraft from sight and sound during D-Day on board battle ships.

Mr Shere will be marching in the parade tomorrow morning.

From the 1950s the Observer Corps trained to respond to all types of chemical, nuclear or biological attacks. He said : “We were trained for the kind of event that happened in Salisbury. I had Nuclear, Biological and Chemical training because these were perceived as a threat. However by 1995 the world was seen to be a safer place, the Berlin Wall had come down and the Cold War was over.

“But since then there are still threats. The incidents in Salisbury happened and other chemical incidents over the world. We trained to respond to a nuclear threat and were trained for a job we never did, luckily.

“We trained every week for a nuclear incident , training in posts 14ft down in the ground, with teams of us down there. We weren’t just trained in one area we were trained in it all.

“To have the Armed Forces Day event in Salisbury is a full circle for the legacy of the work we did and want to pass onto people.” Veteran Jenny Morris added: “It is a fantastic event especially because of everything Salisbury went throughout year. We spent years training for events like that and nuclear threat. We were never needed but we were always there.” Next year’s national Armed Forces Day event will be held in Scarborough.