LAST week we featured a picture of The Boy Bishop, and reminisced about what reader Belinda Groves thought was a play or tableau at St George's Church in Fordington, Dorchester.

It received quite the response, and readers Jonathan Pullen and Charles Deremaux got in touch to share their memories of the people in the picture and solve what the scene was.

Jonathan Pullen, from Weymouth, said: "The photograph is reminiscent of the ceremony of The Boy Bishop associated with certain cathedral choirs.

"While I am no expert on Fordington history, I attended St George's Church Sunday school, usually at Hardye's main school in Culliford road, where I was later a pupil under Canon Edward Brookes and Mrs. Gwen Gooch - whose stoicism in allowing her legs to be buried in sand on Sunday school outings commanded my respect.

"I would guess that 'Bishop' Ronald Brooks was he who went on to become a local GP in partnership with our family doctor, Dr. Charles Hollins and Dr Kate Wyatt.

"He was also an Anglican lay reader and a magistrate and also, I think, a governor of his old school, by then Hardye's.

"The 1950s bore witness to the late afternoon of high church attendance and the sense of community it promoted was an integral and valuable part of our upbringing.

Jonathan said: "The Rev. Canon Edward Brookes, succeeded the 'cricketing' parson, The Rev. Gilbert Jessop, in 1956, I think as vicar of St George's.

"His son, Richard was the year below me at Hardye's as indeed was Michael Perham who retired about two years ago as Bishop of Gloucester.

"Edward and Lyn Brooks were a delightful couple who eventually retired to Dorchester."

Charles Deremaux also contacted us after seeing the picture. "My wife and I were married in 1962 by a vicar named Edward Brookes. I looked it up on our marriage certificate.

"Evelyn Kingman, the daughter of Harold Kingman, in the picture, played the organ at our wedding!"