Changing times for village in photo spotlight
The changing face of Alveley is being showcased in a photographic exhibition being held by the Alveley Historical Society which underlines a dramatic transformation in the space of little more than a decade.
The exhibition is in St Mary's Church at Alveley on Saturday May 19 and Sunday May 20 and is a joint event with the church's spring fair.
"Although we have published books of photographs of the village in the past, the photographs for the exhibition are not ones which have been previously published," said Pam Stanton, historical society secretary.
"The theme is to show how the village changed in little more than a decade from the late 1960s to the late 1970s and early 80s from little more than a hamlet to the thriving village it has become.
"There will be other photographs from earlier than this period as the changes in farming started not long after the war.
"We do have many more photographs of the people and events throughout the years but this exhibition focuses mainly on the buildings old and new.
"It is fascinating to see what buildings were here before the building of the new housing estates, how many have survived and how they have been adapted for modern living."
Pam said that until the 1950s Alveley had changed very little since the late 1880s.
"Most of the photographs are from the Bill Scriven collection. Bill is the current chairman of the Alveley Historical Society. He was born and bred in the village and is well known by the villagers.
"He is a keen photographer and has taken many of the photographs in the exhibition himself. Others have been given to him by villagers or loaned to him so that he can copy and reproduce them.
"In his time in the village he has been a publican in several of the village pubs and so folks are at ease chatting to him and finding him photos of places and people.
"Most of the photographs he has enhanced by enlarging and sharpening. Being a keen photographer he has the technology to do this.
"The photographs now belong to the Alveley Historical Society as Bill has donated his photographs to the collection already held by the society. We have some photographs which date back to the late 1800s.
"We are always keen to be given or loaned more photographs. We especially would like to do another exhibition at a future date showing people and events. We have very few photographs of the village organisations even though during the 70s, 80s and 90s the village was buzzing with activity.
"There were Scouts, Cubs, Guides and Brownie organisations. There have during this time been many school fetes, donkey derbys, performances by the Alveley Players, as well as cricket and football matches."
