It was a scene in the wonderful old film Pembrokeshire My County, shown at one of the meetings of the Pembroke and Monkton Local History Society, that sparked off a conversation with one of our members, Susan Clague.

The short film sequence featuring the Pageant of Pembroke led to Sue telling me: "I was there, I actually took part in that."

Since then, she has been busy getting together material about the event for the society, which includes a photograph of herself taking part as a young 17-year-old.

We already had a small collection of photographs of this event from various sources, and recently featured these in our exhibition, Entertainment in Times Past.

But we have tried in vain to find out if a film exists of the pageant, and if anyone knows anything about it, we would be very pleased to hear from you.

In the extract shown in Pembrokeshire My County, Henry Tudor, played by Roy Haggar, triumphantly rides into Pembroke Castle on his way to Bosworth and this gives a flavour of the scale of the pageant, the like of which has never been seen since.

This amazing event took place over three days in 1958 and was organised by the Pembrokeshire Local History Society to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the birth of Henry Tudor in Pembroke Castle in 1457.

The pageant was postponed a year to coincide with the Festival of Wales in 1958 and became one of its biggest attractions.

It told the story of Pembrokeshire from Norman times to the Battle of Bosworth and scenes were interspersed with ballet choreographed by local ballet teacher Miss Violet Ellis, of Main Street.

Susan actually took part in the final scene.

She explained: "The setting was a bustling market place in the town of Pembroke complete with street entertainers in the form of weightlifters, tumblers, fools and even a bear on a chain or rather a man dressed in a very realistic bear costume. I was a peasant maid, dressed in hessian from head to toe which was dyed and the colour ran. The highlight of this scene was the arrival of Henry Tudor and the great effort we made in cheering him on his way must have been heard a couple of miles away!"

For Susan was one of a cast of epic proportions: nigh on 600 took part and many thousands flocked to see it.

It was a county-wide production, the cast being drawn from all over Pembrokeshire and from all walks of life.

To quote a contemporary account in the Western Telegraph: "Solicitors took their place in market day crowd scenes; housewives became rose maidens; schoolteachers discarded their normal garb to don drab, loose-fitting peasant costume; and shipyard workers joined forces with ministers of religion to take up battle stations as knights in shining armour."

Great numbers were also involved in the mammoth task of making the costumes. Everyone freely gave their time: this truly was a community event.

The Western Telegraph proclaimed its huge success with the headline, Festival's Great Showpiece - Thousands acclaim success of Pageant of Pembroke... It has been a credit to the county.

The magnitude of this wonderful production cannot be over emphasised. People from all walks of life have spared no effort in making the pageant one of the greatest showpieces ever held in the principality."

Staying with the pageant, our group photograph this week is of some of the Pembroke Borough Councillors who took part in the pageant and whose names are very familiar to Pembroke people.

They are from left to right: ?, Alec Colley (Mayor of Pembroke); R. D. Lowless (town clerk); Charles Griffiths; Charles Green; Len Haggar.

If you have any photographs for this column, please contact me, Linda Asman, on 01646 622428, email [email protected]">[email protected] and visit our website http://www.pembrokeandmonktonhistory.org.uk">www.pembrokeandmonktonhistory.org.uk.