Accession to the throne Brownhills stye

Another Ogley Hay coronation. Some wonderful expressions here in a beautifully scanned photo. Click for a larger version.

Following Janet Bullock’s wonderful photo posted here in the last few weeks there has been a terrific response to the Ogley Hay May Day theme, with a further image of the same event being kindly donated by Kate Dixon, and her mum May Queen Linda Horobin – now we have a further great image sent in by Sheila Kelly of May Day the following year.

Sheila sent this terrific photograph and wrote warmly of the annual celebration She said:

Dear Bob,

Your recent posts about May day celebrations prompted me to look for this Ogley Hay Infants photo of my own. (I hope you haven’t been inundated with them!) It comes from May 1963 and shows Linda Horobin (May queen on previous pics) crowning the May queen from my year – Sue Wall. I am the grumpy looking gal to the right of Linda.

The other names that I can remember are back row – Neil Dance, Sue Kingston, Linda H, me (Sheila Gillion), ?, front row – ?, Gill Edwards, Sue Wall, Sandra Wall, April ?, ?. So sorry for the names I have forgotten.

May day was a big deal at Ogley Hay Infants and I can remeber practising the maypole dances for weeks beforehand. As previously mentioned the pupils voted for the may queen, with runners up being attendants. The girls all wore party dresses and boys had to wear white shirt and tie. Parents had to come up with a flower posy which was taped to a stick so that it wouldn’t fall to pieces.There was also a lot of hanging around and you can see from the photo that we all look thrilled Happy days!

Ogley Hay Infants and Juniors were great schools and I count myself lucky to have been a pupil there. I would also like to say that Linda’s mom was a teacher at the infants school and I remember her as being a lovely lady.

Warm regards to you and all your readers

Sheila Kelly

Thanks to Sheila and all who have sent material, commented or helped with this surprisingly popular thread. Thank you! Please do share your memories – either by commenting here or mailing me. BrownhillsBob at Googlemail dot com.