Villagers are to be invited to 'spot their ancestor' during Goostrey's Rose Festival at the end of the month as well as name former classmates in the local primary school.

The parish archive (GOSPA) is mounting a display during the rose day of photographs from before the turn of the last century of events and faces of Goostrey into the 1970s and later years.

Despite their best efforts, the identity of many people in the pictures remains a mystery, but

the archive hopes some visitors to the 114-year-old event will be able to put names to faces on images, some of which have only recently been discovered and will form part of the display.

 

Knutsford Guardian:

Picture courtesy of the Smallwood Collection

 

Many pictures are from the collection of Jean Smallwood, whose book Goostrey Remembered was published in 2000 and has become a definitive guide to the history and life of the village.

The stand in the main tent at the festival on Saturday, June 29, will also feature a number of artefacts stored by the archive.

Last year's Queen, Samantha Drucker, will hand over her duties – but not her Crown which is retained as a precious family heirloom – to the new Queen, 12-year-old Casey Wakefield, who follows in the footsteps of her great aunt and grandmother.

The archive has a collection of Rose Festival programmes but some years are missing in the period before the First and Second World Wars.

It also has several crowns worn by past queens and donated for safekeeping by their families but they are now too fragile to display on rose day.

 

Knutsford Guardian:

Picture courtesy of the Smallwood Collection

 

Stewart Smallwood, a member of the archive who is cataloguing his mother's collection of photographs in excess of 5,000 images of local interest, said: "We will be happy to have donations of any rose festival programmes from past years even though we might already have copies.

"We thought putting on a display of pictures will jog a few memories and many people might be able to help us identify our missing names.

"We always welcome the loan or donation of photos, documents or artefacts that may be of interest to current and future generations in the village.

 

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"So the day will also provide people with the opportunity to bring items of interest along. If anyone wants to keep their original family pictures we can take copies of them to put in the archive."

The festival which has its origins in the 1800s when it was a May Day celebration attracts many former residents who left the village over the years and return just for the day.

Members of the archive group, who will be on the stand at the festival, meet in the village hall where the collection is kept on Tuesdays between 2pm and 4pm, Thursdays 10am until noon and on the first Wednesday of the month from 7pm until 9pm.