A POPULAR group in Alton has celebrated its 50th anniversary.

Alton Townswomen’s Guild has spanned five decades since it was formed in 1966 and members marked the landmark occasion with a celebratory lunch at the Alton House Hotel and a birthday party complete with special cake.

The Guild was founded as a result of letters written to the Hampshire Herald and The Alton Mail in January 1966 by Joyce Preddle, who had just come to live in Alton.

Joyce, already a Townswomen’s Guild member, had expected to find a Guild she could join. Her mother had been an early Guild activist, joining shortly after the Townswomen’s Guilds were founded in 1928. As a teenager, Joyce met Dame Margery Corbett Ashby, one of the Guild’s founders, when Dame Margery was visiting her mother.

There had been an earlier Townswomen’s Guild in Alton because an item in the local paper on July 13, 1941, recorded that Alton Townswomen’s Guild had undertaken to preserve as much fruit as possible in the form of jam and was appealing for donations of fruit and equipment. No-one knows what happened to this Guild.

Joyce, who died in 2012, always refused the title of “founder”, insisting it had been a group effort. Wendy Sturge, who proposed the founding of the Alton Townswomen’s Guild at the meeting in March 1966 is still a member of the Guild and is now president.

Wendy cut the first slice from the specially-iced 50th birthday cake, which was made by Guild chairman Olivia Turrall and iced by committee member Betty Leonard. Jean Ellison, who joined the Guild in 1968, blew out the candles.

Five past chairmen were invited to the party – Joy Poore, Mary George, Jenny Stratford, Gill Newman and Barbara Burfoot.

Jean Goodwin, the Guild’s secretary, who joined in 1968, entertained the party with reminiscences of past Guild activities, particularly the successes of the drama group recreating part of the Battle of Alton for a Guild event in Southampton and performing an extract from the Canterbury Tales for a drama competition in a theatre on the Isle of Wight, and the contribution Alton members had made to the Hampshire North Federations’ choir.

Alton is a member of Hampshire North Federation of Townswomen’s Guilds and the Federation’s chairman, Vera Pullen, and the treasurer, Lily New, joined the celebrations.

Vera said it was always good to visit Alton because members really understood what the Guild was about – “friendship and fun”.

Doris Bolam, a member for 25 years, said she had undertaken a number of different roles in the Guild. She recalled Guild holidays in Rouen, Bruges and Ireland before offering some reflections on the advantages and disadvantages of growing older. Doris won the award for National Townswoman of the Year in 2009.

There was a chance to review memorabilia of past events and the photograph and cutting albums before Olivia proposed toasts to Alton Townswomen’s Guild and to the Queen.