VISITORS to Haddenham took a step back in time at the annual Blossoms and Bygones festival on Sunday afternoon, as the village took on a Victorian theme to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the village school.
The High Street was cleared of traffic, and every house was given a blue plaque denoting its resident at the time of the 1861 census. There were stalls, Victorian games including a hoop trundle and skipping races, Queen Victoria and her Ghillie John Brown toured the village, the Methodist church became a temperance hall, and a Victorian policeman was on hand to keep order.
One of the highlights of the day was a Victorian music hall, with Bruce Pattern wielding a gavel as a traditional master of ceremonies, introducing acts including the women’s barber shop quartet Sasperella, and Stretham Nightingale soprano Diana Lock.
Also treading the boards was John Shippey who performed a monologue, the children from the Robert Arkenstall School who sand, and Rick and Wendy who performed the One-Eyed Little Yellow God.
One of the event’s co-ordinators, Sarah Burton, said: “It was a really lovely day. The church bells rang three times, which really added to the atmosphere, and visitors really liked the street being closed off.”
A time tunnel - made up of signs counting down the decades - connected Haddenham with nearby Aldreth, where visitors found themselves in the 1940s, with the Suffolk Home Guard in attendance, along with dancers performing the jitterbug, a Winston Churchill look-alike giving a speech and vintage cars and military vehicles lining the High Street.
An iconic Spitfire plane from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight flew over the village three times. One of the Aldreth organisers, Kim Smith, said: “We had a fantastic day, thanks to the hard work of many people. Over the weekend we raised £1,799 for the village centre.”
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