This week's Pictures from the Past

Over the last few days we have featured some pictures emailed to us by Phil Stringer, who came across them in an old family album. This is the last of the trio he sent us and shows the choir of St Mary's Church in Shrewsbury with the choirmaster, Sam Baker. The photo dates from the late 1950s.

Not long now to Christmas... but we're going back 50 years today with this picture of a Christmas party. It was emailed in by our regular contributor Paul France of Coalbrookdale who tells us: "This is the Nuway Christmas Party at the Forest Glen in 1959. Three places up from the corner, proudly wearing his party hat, is a very young Ron Miles from Jackfield!"

A couple of notes of explanation may be needed: ­ Nuway is a firm which used to be based at Coalport, and Ron Miles is a well known local historian.

Here's one to cut out and keep. Then put it in your pocket. Then, on Christmas Day, take it out again. Hey presto! Snow at Christmas!

Actually it shows "Dawley football ground adjoining the park in Doseley Road" and was taken on February 16, 1963, during a famously hard winter in which the temperatures were around freezing for weeks.

And if you can't have real snow... fake it. Here Shropshire firm Wildes is bringing in artificial snow during the filming of A Christmas Carol in Shrewsbury. The streets of Shrewsbury were transformed into a good representation of the Victorian era. The movie was not actually filmed at Christmas, though. This picture was taken on March 11, 1984.

Cheers, from the regulars at the Bull's Head pub, Hinstock. But don't bother going down there to join them, as the pub is long gone.

This photo is among the memorabilia of Mrs Barbara Fisher, of Stanton-on-Hine-Heath, whose late father Arthur Worthington, nicknamed Wacker, was landlord for around 37 years, leaving, she thinks, in 1968.

She identifies them as, from left, the late Fred Massey; Michael Brown; the late Joe Massey (Fred's son); and the late Arthur Watkin. The photo may be from the 1950s or early 1960s.