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By Yoland
Can it really be 10 years since the Ruyton XI Towns
Charter Festival? A lot has happened in the village since then
but perhaps nothing quite like that amazing, pouring wet and freezing cold day
on 21st June 2008.
I will start this series of entries for www.eleventowns.uk
with how it all started. In February
2004 I gave a presentation to the Parish Council in the village hall. It was an open meeting and I wanted to
encourage the PC and the public to be interested in holding a big event to
celebrate the 700th anniversary of the granting of Ruyton`s Borough
Charter. I have to say, there were
people out there who thought it was much too early to think about holding an
event – after all, Ruyton carnivals were organised in just a few months and
were always a success.
The result of my presentation was a grant of £250 from
the Parish Council and a Charter Committee – Chrissy Niddrie Davies, Tony &
Ros Gittins, Keith & Heather Griffiths, Avril Sanders Royle, the late Ann
Miller, your`s truly and Stewart our treasurer – to manage the £250!. The ideas flowed thick and fast but the money
did not and it soon became clear that there were no grants available to us as
this was to be a one-off event – so funds had to be raised.
The next four years were spent in raising interest in
the project and the significance of the
anniversary of our village NOT becoming a town, with the inhabitants
being equal to those of Shrewsbury and Hereford and having the same laws as the
New Town of Bristol!
The first event organised by the committee was a Local
History Exhibition in September 2004, held in the Memorial Hall – now Café
Eleven. We made it clear this was just a
beginning and a prelude to a really comprehensive Local History Exhibition in
2007. We wanted people to be fired up
to tell us stories, lend photographs, letters, etc. to be scanned and saved and
for us to photograph items of interesting or historical importance. What a blessing the scanner was, people could
knock on the door see their photographs scanned and return home with the
precious item with no chance of it being `lost`.
Raising interest was one thing but it was going to
cost more than £250 to hold a Medieval Festival. Other events suggested were a series of
festivities in different eras, starting with A Taste of the 1960s party, A
Taste of the Victorians & Music Hall and A Taste of the
Tudors dinner. Items of Charter
merchandise were commissioned to be sold in the village shop each Christmas –
calendars, tea towels, notelets, a recipe book and eventually a Pictorial
History of Ruyton and The XI Towns. We
particularly wanted to include all the XI Towns in everything we did
Committee members dropped out and new people joined
over the 4 years, it was a punishing schedule of organising and planning,
especially for those who had jobs to go to.
Stewart Ballantyne resigned as Treasurer. However, when Colin Case arrived in the
village with loads of management experience, we grabbed him to fill the empty
hours of his retirement – he did not have many empty hours after that.
Local History Exhibition 21st June 2004
There were displays on Ruyton Dairy, Education, maps
showing the XI Towns, 18th C Baggy Moor Drainage work on the River
Perry,and the Llanymynech to Burlton Turnpike changes to the road through the
village.
Comparison of the shops now & in the past, and the
many changes in the village over the last century. For this we were able to mine the plethora of
post cards produced of the only place in Britain world with Roman Numerals in
its name.
There was children`s village history quiz and an art
competition to draw our castle. We were
delighted to welcome the Shropshire Family History Society to be at the
exhibition to help with any enquiries.
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