'Celebration of Holt' - What a week!

The response to the 'Celebration of Holt' events marking the Holt Society's 50th anniversary exceeded all expectations. When planning started over a year ago, we decided on a week of free community events, open to all, celebrating our town. The climax was listening to 'living history' in a packed community centre, when people who lived here during the war shared their memories with John Roebuck, author of the new book 'Wartime and Post-war Holt'. It was fascinating, funny and extremely moving.

The creativity and imagination of the town was on view for all to see. The Holt Flower Club staged a spectacular flower festival in St Andrew's church; the WI organised a fun Bake-Off with lots of entries and prizes; Holt Library held a Photo Trail competition; the inspirational POP-UP arts event 'A Sense of Place' had a constant flow of visitors; the primary school children produced an extraordinary exhibition of imaginative work about Holt in the past and the future; two community poems by Phil Barrett and Lynda Turbet were skilfully crafted from the words of local people (now on display in the library and see links below), and the Holt Family History Project led by Val and Vic Taylor showed people how to get started in finding out about their own family history (an ongoing initiative every Tuesday at the library).

The 'Glimpses of Holt' exhibition held throughout the week at Picturecraft Gallery was such fun to visit - to 'people watch' and 'eavesdrop' on comments such as "I never knew that" or "that's so-and so. So many new discoveries and new friends. And so many snippets of fascinating information about Holt - from Mr Jex's racing pigeons to the mystery of Rebecca's ring. For those who missed it, there may be plans to reproduce the boards as a little booklet. Watch this space!

And so many people have contributed to make this such a special event and the Holt Society would like to thank the following for their contribution in making the celebration a wonderful community activity...

Phil Barrett, Peta Benson, Caroline Carter, Adrian Hill, Michael Hill, Muriel Holman, Dave King, Gillian & Evgenie Kretchetov, Maureen Lait, Alan Leventhall, Lucy Loveheart, David Makinson, Corinne Matthews, Judy Mitchell, Barbara Page, Gillian Pilgrim, John Roebuck, Matthew Rice, Wendy Richley, The late Dot Shreeve, Maureen Smith, Erika Sperry, Rev'd Howard Stoker, Sebastian Sutcliffe, Val & Vic Taylor, Lynda Turbet, Simon Walters, Joanna Wessely, Alison Yetman, plus...

All the Artists who contributed to the POP UP exhibition, Holt Book Shop, Holt Chronicle, Holt Community Centre, Holt Flower Club, Holt Primary School, Holt WI, The Lawns Estate, The Library, North Norfolk Railway, Picturecraft, St Andrew's Church.

The community's words bought together in two poems by Phil Barrett and Lynda Turbet expressing why we all love our town!

Phil Barrett's poem
Lynda Turbet's poem

See our gallery for more pictures of the events.