As one of the ways of marking the Millennium, Chipperfield Parish Council decided in 1997 to publish a book entitled “Chipperfield Within Living Memory”. As I had previous experience of recording peoples memoirs, I was pleased to be asked to lead such a project in the village. A team of people including Rita Forsythe, Lucy Williams and David Williams assisted me and, over a period of three years, more than 80 interviews were conducted and recorded. The baton then passed to Jacki Robson, who very kindly volunteered to audio-type all the material. From there, it has passed to Liz Holliday, who although wearing several different hats, is making time to edit the material ready for publication as a book in the autumn.
The spin-off from the interviews and publicity about the project has been the large number of photographs which have been lent to the interviewers. There are far too many for inclusion in the book, so in order to share them with the public, an exhibition of over 170 captioned photographs depicting all aspects of village life in the twentieth century has been prepared with the help of Dacorum Heritage Trust. The exhibition will be on show in the Village Hall on Saturday 10 June and Sunday 11 June between 10.OOam and 6.OOpm.
Do come and browse – and allow plenty of time! We are still trying to identify some of the people in a number of old group photographs, so if you have lived in the village for some time and feel that you could help to fill in the missing names, it might be worth bringing a magnifying glass and a pencil with you. Corrections of any misinformation will also be appreciated. If you have any photographs that you feel would contribute towards the village archive, please let me know. All will be carefully copied and returned. Mary Nobbs