A year in pictures

A commemorative calendar, made up of photographs depicting a former mining community, has been produced by the Ollerton of Yesteryear group.

The 2009 calendar contains a collection of pictures from over a 70-year period.

Each picture show the community spirit and history of the Ollerton Colliery — which first struck coal in August 1925 and closed in February 1994.

The group, set up six years ago, has been creating calendars featuring Ollerton’s past coal mining community for the last three years.

The chairman of the Yesteryear Group, Mrs Irene Miller of Station Road, Ollerton, said: “We are so grateful to the people who have given us photographs, and made producing a calendar possible.”

One image from the calendar shows Station Road in Ollerton on a winters day during the second world war in 1942.

Mrs Miller said: “This is a great photo and really conjures up memories of the second world war.

“I remember the army vehicle in the background was carrying blankets.”

Another photograph shows the women who performed in the Ollerton and Bevercotes Variety Show in 1973.

“I used to be chairman of the Ollerton and Bevercotes Ladies’ Miners Welfare Section, and this photo was taken after one of the shows we put on,” Mrs Miller said.

There are also photographs of Betty McLafferty who was the National Union for Miners coal queen winner for the north Nottinghamshire area, and an old Automobile Association box on the Ollerton roundabout at the junction of Old Rufford Road and Worksop Road.

The calendars are on sale from the library on Forest Road, New Ollerton, or Booles Newsagents also on Forest Road, and cost £3.75.

Mrs Miller said: “We are very pleased with the calendar.

“We tried to pick photographs with a lot of faces on so more people would recognise themselves and friends.

“There is a story behind every picture in that calendar.”