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Millennium Book

Flower Festival


"Farming through the Ages".
Flower Festival at St. Stephen's Church on July 1st and 2nd 2000


I hardly know where to begin - so I suppose the start of an idea at Christmas 1999 would be a good place.
It was mooted  by Jim and Joan Aslett that a "Gardens Open" in the village in aid of St Margaret's Hospice would be of great interest. They suggested that we should hold a flower festival at the same time to raise money for our church. We therefore had a coffee morning and, with a donation of £50.00 from the Horticultural Society, we managed to get the enormous sum of £272.00 to buy flowers. 
Wheels clicked into motion and the result took place on July 1st and 2nd 2000 after a vast amount of work. Sixteen organisations in the village took part and listed below are the Exhibitors.
Short Mat Bowls - A pale blue and airy arrangement of scabious, daisies, pittasporum trees, cart and plough entitled "Land to the plough".

Winsham Youth Club - A large yellow and black bee surrounded by small ones buzzing about with flowers in pink, yellow and white called "Honey to the Bee".
Winsham W.I. - "Farmyard Favourites". Hens, ducks, eggs, flowers of every hue, trees, coops and ponds. An arrangement in pink and white to link two windows.
Farm Office 2000 - An amazing display of all the paper bureaucracy that the farmers have to put up with nowadays; making one or two farmers who came round the church shudder.

Winsham Pre-School - "Porky Pigs" everywhere, paper pigs, a plaster pig and a flower pig with yellow buds called "Pork Chop".

Fund-raising Committee for Winsham Church - representing sheep farming. Model of a sheep and all sorts of implements that are used to deal with them. Spinning wheels, skeins of dyed wool, display of methods of dying wools, flowers of foxgloves, daisies and various grasses called "Sheep may safely graze".

Wessex Foundation at Magdalen Farm - "Tomorrow's World". Pink and white flowers, herbs, wheat and many things associated with the organic farming theme they used. Photos, rakes and early farming implements completed the scene.



P.C.C. - Aisle and Lectern
- "Stay me
with flagons and comfort me with apples". 
Representing cider growing. 
Arrangements of Apple trees, 
osteospurnums, flagons, flasks and
a small cider press.
Winsham Parish Council - "Seed-time and Harvest will never fail". An arrangement of crops taken straight from the fields; poppies, daisies, corn marigolds, fiddle, sickle, grain, scoop and large corn sheaf. Screen with wild roses, cow parsley, honeysuckle and foxgloves.
Winsham Bell Ringers - "Ringing the changes, Bygone Years". A haycart of cream flowers, horse and cart, bells, horse brasses, white and blue cornflowers.

Winsham Mothers Union - "Ringing the changes, Horse to Harvester". Hedges of flowers, land girls, horses, harvester, clouds with texts from the bible. Two arrangements representing the Sun and the Moon.

P.C.C. - Altar. - "Raced through the House high Hay, and nothing I cared". The theme was Hayfields with poppies, daisies, cornflowers, hay bales, a wonderful old hay cutter, rakes, forks and scythes.

Winsham Art Club - "Changing Landscapes". A collage of paintings done by the Art Club. Flowers in orange and blue
Y.S.L. Seeds of Winsham. - A collection of indigenous trees set up on a very high and difficult window.

Winsham School. - Four huge arrangements in the porch of garden flowers. Loosestrife, foxgloves, lilies and many others. An enormous scarecrow complete with a rook on his shoulder, who gave one or two people a tremendous shock.

A picture of a horse logging was painted and donated by Les Toulmin. We had a raffle for it and raised £262.00 which was won by Terri from The Bell's mother, Irene.

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Winsham Horticultural Society
- "Buttercup and Daisy". Two flower cows complete with udders! One cream and one yellow. Milk churns with flower cream pouring forth, all on a field of grass. Vast yellow arrangement in the Font.

It was an incredibly happy time, in spite of the hard work but we all laughed a lot (after the panic settled!) and pulled together so that we all arranged our flowers in a Carnival atmosphere.

Phyllida Howell, on behalf of the Fund Raising Committee

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This page revised 12 May 2009