Every other year Suffolk Local History Council invites all the Local History Societies and like minded organizations in the County to a day-long history fair.

The fair is at Mendlesham, chosen because it is roughly in the middle of Suffolk with reasonable or good road access. This year, as usual, some 50 societies attended and many had stands showing off their latest publications and research to a wider audience than normal.

The afternoon display by individual Societies

An eclectic mixture of fifteen-minute lectures in the morning provided something for everyone, be it on village history, research, identifying and photographing old wharves and quays on rivers and estuaries to our new web site. Incidentally, we learned in one lecture that modern technology is creeping closer. It seems that National grid references using Ordnance Survey maps, which many found difficult enough, are giving way in the official mind to Latitude/Longitude references using the Global Positioning System as the ONLY way to put something in its right position!

The Society for Sailing Barge Research

No doubt historians will continue to do what they are familiar with and most of us will cope with the translation of one to the other if it is important enough to us.

In the afternoon the meeting is thrown open to the public and various societies enjoy displaying their research and publications – always a good time to strike up new acquaintances, renew old ones and just generally browse for some useful book or artifact. Me? I’m looking forward to the next one.