2002 Annual Reunion
On a bright Saturday in May we met in the beautiful settings of Holmfirth in the Holme Valley. Holmfirth being famous as the setting over the last 28years of the BBC Television programme “The Last of The Summer Wine”.
Our meeting this year was held at the Crag Rats Theatre on the Dunford Road, which is housed in an old worsted mill.
Nearly fifty members and friends gathered together to ponder over the Society records linking new information into the existing records and gleaning new information for their own records.
This years meeting was hosted by Edward Wagstaff of The Foxhouse Group Holmfirth. Edward welcomed everyone to the meeting and gave a brief background of the Wagstaffs in the area. The Wagstaffs came from the “Underbank” area of Holmfirth.
Mrs Barbara Kent gave the meeting a resumé of how the Society was getting on during the past years with membership and records, stating that we are up to the 300 mark in member numbers, but these included members who are no longer with us for one reason or another.
A most welcome guest was Robert Wagstaff from St. Louis in the good old US of A. who is studying in Oxford Brookes University and had found out about our meeting through our web site. Robert had come to find out more of his forbears and where they came from, sure enough before the meeting ended he had trace them through our records.
The most famous son of Holmfirth was the Rugby Footballer Harold Wagstaff, A lovely coincidence was the attendance of Mrs. Betty Crosland from Huddersfield who is a direct descendant of Harold.
We all moved into the cafe bar to have refreshments which were most welcome. After we were fully refreshed we returned to the theatre where we were given a very interesting talk on Heraldry by Mr. L.E. Rothwell who is the Armorist to the Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council and Herald to the North of England.
People may think that Heraldry would be a very dry subject, but Mr. Rothwell really put sparkle into the subject. Giving details of the origins of Heraldry, which date from the 12th Century. He illustrated his talk with slides which showed various Coat of Arms both ancient and modern. Although his position as Herald is only part time; the position goes back to the 12th Century, but he has still got a lot of clout when it comes to Heraldry. Mr. Rothwell gave instances where firms had put up banners which they had no right to show, he then insisted them to take them down. One of his many jobs as Herald is to draw a Coat of Arms which would be associated with a person who had recently had one granted to them.
After a very entertaining session there were a number of questions from the members and concluding the meeting Mr. Rothwell was thanked for a very enlightening talk.
After the meeting broke up the members took advantage of the beautiful weather and scenery and investigated the town of Holmfirth.
Here’s to the next meeting in 2003.