A school's annual May Fair in Grove promises to be a right royal occasion in every way.

Joyce Carter looks through photographs with this year's May Queen, seven-year-old Hannah Barrett

Not only will there be the traditional crowning of a new May Queen, staff and pupils hope to be joined by several former pupils who have held the title in years gone by.

Fittingly, as the school celebrates the Queen's Golden Jubilee, the May Queen from 1952 will be at the event on Saturday.

Photographs of other May Queens from the past 50 years will be on show.

Joyce Denly, as she then was, was chosen to wear the crown in the first year of the Queen's reign.

Half a century on, Mrs Carter, a farmer's wife who lives in Sparsholt, near Wantage, who has four grown-up daughters, recalls the occasion well.

"I was then at a boarding school at Swindon. In those days, the May Queen was chosen from those girls who had left the previous year, so we were 11 or 12 years old.

"It was quite a nice day for our fair, and I have a newspaper cutting which records all the details of the day.

"The children did maypole dancing and the adults did country dancing, and a lot of people turned up for it.

"I was dressed in a white silk dress with a cape of oyster pink taffeta, and my attendants were Hazel Cripps, from Lockinge, and Frances Cross, from East Hanney, who I still see from time to time."

She added: "There was a song specially composed for that day, called Beautiful Grove, which was supposed to be sung each year.

"After the ceremony, we toured the parish in decorated lorries and went into Wantage in the evening and the dancers performed again."