The committee was inaugurated on October 26th 1944, when a few Sawley gentlemen met to discuss the possibility of starting a fund to provide for the building of a public hall, for the use of the community, there being no suitable place available for social functions in Sawley.
The Sawley Memorial Hall and Community Centre was opened by Richard Attenborough in the summer of 1958, in memory of the dead of the two World Wars.
The opening was televised on ATV, and made headline news in the Long Eaton Advertiser! It's not every day a film star visits Sawley!