Bottesford Living History Exhibition 2008

Displays filled the Fuller Room and the adjacent Youth Club room.

Neil Fortey

Displays in the Fuller Room

An old post card of the Cross, Stocks, Buick (or Studebaker) and hen.

An old post card of Market Street

An old post card of Bottesford parish church

A rare Victorian glass positive image of "Sarah and Hannah James at Bottesford".

Tommy Johnson (right) on duty, photo taken by H.S.Johnson

K2 61754 coming through Bottesford in 1959, photographed by Neville Stead.

Railway Timetable

St John's Ambulance Association certificate issued to Archibald Pollard of the GNER in 1931

This gallery is a snapshot of the new pictures contributed by visitors to the exhibition.

The Bottesford Living History Project Second Exhibition was held over the August Bank Holiday weekend, August 23-25, 2008. Larger and more varied than the 2007 exhibition, this one filled both the Fuller Room and the adjoining Youth Club room, and then spilled over into the Youth Club television room which was turned into a cinema for the occasion.

There were many more boards to look at, and many more words to read. Any worries that visitors would find the reading hard going were quickly dispelled as people sat down and earnestly worked their way through the accounts of village life and people. Some stayed two hours or more. Some came back for a second bite of the cherry! Who said we have no concentration span these days?

The exhibition was a great credit to the team of volunteers who put it together. Much of what was on show came from hard work by Sue and Dave Middleton, Sue Dunsmore, Alan and Barbara Pizzey and Kate Pugh. The display of farming and other implements was provided by Gerald Rastall, Trevor Coy, Mrs Ada Bond and Mrs Joan Peach. Special thanks go to Mrs Midge Baldwin who chivvied us along and provided endless tea and biscuits.

We thank the visitors to the exhibition, especially all those who shared their memories with us and those who brought in pictures, documents and artefacts to be scanned as contributions to the project archive. Not all live locally: some came from as far away as Norwich and Lowestoft.

The Project is grateful to: Bottesford Parish Council and Bottesford Youth Club for allowing us to take over their halls, and to Melton Carnegie Museum, Melton Library, Bingham Heritage Trails Association, Bottesford Community Centre, Belvoir High School, Bottesford Library and St Mary’s Parish Church for the loan of display boards.

Now that the dust has settled, we can look back on a good weekend when it felt as though the Bottesford Living History Project came of age.