Charlie has just handed me two huge photo albums chronicling life and activities over the past twenty or so years. Most of them recording our various fundraising festivals.
Goodness! How very young we all are. For one thing all our grey and white heads, apart that is from Elizabeth, whose pretty hair has been white for as long as I have known her, were originally black, brown or golden. Jan is the only person still, and that without assistance, whose mop is its original colour. Most of us, now somewhat bent and creaking, are there upstanding and healthy looking. There are dozens of pictures of children listening to the storyteller under the trees, bouncing on the trampoline or having their faces painted. Funny to think that those chocolate plastered faces, small girls in their frilly, pink frocks, grubby kneed small boys, equally adorned, maybe by now have children of their own.
There are photos of all the festivals we ever had, sculpture and embroidery, herbs and hawks and crafts of all varieties. There are pictures of folk dancers, Elizabethan dancers, fairies and scarecrows. There are pictures of Peter King-Turner as a very youthful Mr. Hoppit and Charlie in a Pied Piperish costume and a white top hat. There are photos of things going on in the hall, most of which I have not the faintest recollection. There is for instance a very large lady doing something on the stage and a stand bearing an enormous quantity of hats. Penny Bowkett is there organising the photographic exhibition and Sue and Elizabeth doling tea through the hatch.
Talking of tea I remember the occasions when Jan’s mother, Pru and I dished out teas for three days non stop. We never got to see any of the activities and were assisted only by Michael and Phyllis Staines. It is sad to be reminded how many people are no longer with us, Leonard and Pru, Cyril and Elsie Jones, Thelma’s parents John and Mary and dear Myra Bodley. In a year or two I’ll probably have joined them but I can assure you that my shade will be pleased to float down and enjoy the party and to realise I don’t have to so much as knock up a scone or dish out a cup of coffee; I’ll just give a quiet grin and think “Here we go again”.