THE Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire, is to be the guest of honour and speaker at the Forest of Dean History Society’s 70th anniversary dinner.

Dame Janet Trotter – who was appointed Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in the New Year’s Honours – will be present at the dinner which will take place at the Speech House.

The occasion is being hosted by the society’s president Baroness Jan Royal and will be held on Saturday, June 30.

Announcing the Society’s 2018 programme, newly elected chairman Mary Sullivan said the wide-ranging calendar of events had been designed to include something of interest for all members with contributions from four of the vice-presidents.

Ian Pope planned to turn back the clock to the year the Society was formed (1948) and discuss the extensive railway network still in existence in the Forest in that year; Averil Kear is to tell the fascinating story of a girls’ school which moved lock, stock and barrel to Lydney Park for the duration of the Second World War; Keith Walker goes beneath the Severn to search for remains of a failed bid to dig a tunnel under the river at Newnham; and Ian Standing explores a new angle on local history with his talk entitled “Words from the past: the Forest observed 1200AD to 2012AD.”

The full programme is: January 13, West Dean Centre, Bream, Medieval Churches of West Gloucestershire (Steve Blake); February 10, West Dean Centre, Bream, 1948 A Year of Change for Forest Railways; March 10, West Dean Centre, Bream, The School at Lydney Park 1939-1947 (Averil Kear); March 23, Coleford Baptist Hall, Writing a Historical Novel (Andrew Taylor); April 7, West Dean Centre, Bream, The Lost City of Trellech (Stuart Wilson); April 28, Churchdown Community Centre, Local History Day, Gloucestershire between the Wars 1918-1939; May 19, Churches of the Dean (A self-drive tour, with Simon Moore); June 22, Soudley Village Hall. A Fortunate Man, a showing of the film shot in Soudley and Blakeney; June 23 and 24, St Briavels, A Fortunate Man Revisited, 1972 film, exhibition, tour and talks; June 30, Speech House anniversary dinner; July 19, Clearwell Caves, A History of Underground Dean film and tour (Diana Standing and Forest Caving Club); August 11, Coach tour, Forest People and Places (Cecile Hunt and Averil Kear); Sept 8, The West Dean Centre, Bream, The First Severn Tunnel (Keith Walker); September 19, Blakeney Village Hall, Archaeology in the Forest of Dean, recent research and future directions (Jon Hoyle); October 6, West Dean Centre, Bream, Founders of the Forest of Dean Local History Society (Mary Sullivan); Nov 10, West Dean Centre, Bream, Words from the Past: The Forest observed 1200AD to 2012AD; December 8, West Dean Centre, Bream, Christmas 1948, Rationing and Paper Chains.