History Society

I've been otherwise engaged this weekend (the Young Man came and we had a Bond-themed birthday party for him, which was fun).
Before he arrived, though, I spent a pleasant evening in the Blue Boar with members of the Cheese Market research team, discussing the possibility of setting up a more general History Society for Hay.
There used to be quite an active history society, with visiting speakers, and dinners, and so on, and on paper they still exist - they even have a bank account. It would be possible to transfer that over to a new group, with the assent of the members who are still in Hay. However, the Cheese Market research team are not sure they want to take on the amount of work it would take to run a society like the original one, with the speakers and dinners and so on. So it was proposed to hold an open meeting for the Cheese Market people to meet with the original History Society people, and anyone else in Hay who is interested in local history, so that everyone with an interest in the subject can get together and decide how to go forward. This will be in January, and there will be posters up around town nearer the date.
By the time of this meeting, the lottery funding for the Cheese Market will have been decided on, as well, and they will know how they can proceed with the renovations that are needed.
Meanwhile, Eric Pugh has something interesting on his website (see the sidebar under Old Hay) - he now has some old 8mm films up on his site, of the last days of the railway, and the last Hay Fair, and a 1960s Boxing Day meet at the clock tower, with more to come.
And with Remembrance Sunday coming up, there were a couple of military stories. A man from Whitney won a VC in the First World War, for instance - and just after the First World War, two guns were presented to the Council. It's assumed that these were fairly large field guns rather than small arms - but where are they now?