Millennium

 

Millennium

We are fortunate to have lived through a great milestone in human history in the turn of the second millennium. In our village we determined to do something to mark the change. It is true that it’s only a date in an arbitrary calendar but it had symbolic importance. A villager took the initiative and called a meeting in 1997 to discuss what form this might take. He rightly emphasised that it was necessary to raise money to fund any plans.

Many and various ideas were suggested both for celebration and fund raising. The first fund raising venture was a night hike. A route was plotted out and marked with glow signs with the help of a nearby army base. This major base was only to anxious to assist in community events. The idea was that walkers would follow the route arriving back at the community centre in time for a hearty breakfast.. Although it was mildly competitive the main idea was an unusual countryside hike; partly on byways partly on footpaths.

I took an important role in the second night hike. Unfortunately I slightly misjudged the speed of two very competitive walkers and arrived at my marshalling point after they had passed and headed up the wrong route. They were not pleased at having to retrace their mistaken route.

A more unusual fund raising event was a dice game to win a car. I was rather dubious about this but it grew into a big money raiser. The idea was that in a dice throw you had to throw six sixes to win the car. It was possible to insure against the risk by an insurance costing the low hundreds. What I didn’t realise initially was the insurance carried an excess if the car was won. Our organiser got an attractive spot in the shopping mall of a nearby town. What we hadn’t expected was one young man accompanied by an admiring young lady who was determined to win the car. He must have spent at least £100 and came very close with five sixes. Alarmed by this the winning score was raised to seven sixes after he had left.

Our village is close to some attractive woods. We organised a family walk to be followed by a picnic. Food donations were pooled. We had a small children’s competition to observe things around the woods. I remember one walker was seen not partaking of the picnic. When I enquired it turned out he a had a special diet and his contribution had been mixed up with all the others. He wasn’t put off and became a stalwart of the organising group.

Our Millennium  group met monthly from mid 1998 on. We had a minor embarrassment when the chairman just stopped attending. He didn’t say he was resigning just stopped coming. It turned out he had organised a village disco in the village club which had been a fiasco with few attending. He was apparently disgusted. I was honoured by being elected as chairman in his stead.

By this stage we had dropped to a hard core of maybe a dozen. We held our meetings with the village playing field committee. This gave rise to the most controversial decision of the group. We were asked to donate £500 for playing field fencing and on a show of hands agreed despite a number pointing out that funds were only intended for Millennium celebrations.

There was a lot of talk of the “Millennium Bug”. This arose because early computing had allocated only two figures for years. Thus 77 instead of 1977. There was a fear that some unchanged programs would revert to 1900 on the year 2000. I had attended a course on the bug and I was able to give a talk to the group. A lot of time and money was spent updating software and in the event most rolled over quite smoothly; the feared chaos did not occur. I was quite relieved when we had no problems with our computers at work. Intensive preparation paid off.

For the Millennium celebrations I was able, with help, to republish an account of a villagers life through 1915-1985 and also his daughters reminiscences of her village childhood. This home printed booklet also featured a ( rather far fetched) story about a boyhood prank by a local author and a village history from pre Norman Conquest to the present day.

An additional idea was to gather together as many old photos as we could find, print them A4 size, and display in a marquee we called Memory Lane.

We held our celebration in June 2000 alongside the Village Playing Field events day. We began with a short introduction by Anglican and Methodist priests who usually held services at the village church and chapel respectively. The Millennium Group contributed several events in addition to Memory Lane.  These included model traction engine rides and hiring a local band. The Memory Lane marquee inspired many visitors into remembering their association with pictures shown.

An amusing incident occurred when I had left Memory Lane in the care of another group member. She came panting through the crowd and with agitation implored me to return as there was, she said, a lord visiting, and I should greet him appropriately. Somewhat bemused I returned to find the visitor was in fact a villager who had purchased an ancient lordship of a manor and wasn’t an aristocrat. I privately thought it very pretentious to use the title.

Among many gratifying features of the day was that members of the family of the villagers whose accounts we had reprinted in our booklet arrived and were very appreciative. One small issue was that they wanted to purchase a number of booklets which I had to reprint later.

There were many ideas for a permanent memorial. In the end we settled for a custom made circular bench around an oak tree planted for the occasion. We were able to have the seat made by a local company which was headed by a villager who also arranged for it to be installed.