Book of festival flowers to commemorate royal birthday

AFTER all the hard work and artistry that goes into designing and displaying the work of flower arrangers in the annual St Mary’s Flower Festival, it can be sad to see the entries slowly fade and have to been thrown on to the compost heap. Thame Market Co-operative decided that this year’s festival displays should be preserved for posterity and commissioned a book of photographs.

Eileen Bryant (left) and Jackie Slade

This year’s flower festival theme celebrated ’90 glorious years,’ a fitting theme for the Queens 90th birthday. Chris Hurdman, Secretery of the Cooperative said: “After seeing all the beautiful displays it seemed a shame that in a few days that they would be gone. So we thought a book illustrating all the displays would be a great idea and a lasting memory”.

This week Chris presented Jackie Slade, who designed and made the Thame Market Traders Cooperative flower display for the St Mary’s flower festival, and Eileen Bryant – both members of The St Mary’s Guild – the book of photographs of all the flowers on display for the church to keep.