A Millennium record of life in Oare and the villages around may have taken ten years to complete but it was well worth it, say organisers.

The Pan Oare Ama, a play on the word panorama, has finally been printed thanks to a £5,000 grant from the Pewsey Area Board of Wiltshire Council.

It includes photos from around the Millennium plus historic photos from Oare and from the neighbouring villages of Rainscombe, Huish, Draycott Fitzpaine, Sunnyhill Lane and Highleaze.

The book will be launched at the hall committee AGM on Tuesday. Its centrepiece is what has become known as the Big Picture, a group photograph of nearly every resident taken during the Millennium celebrations.

The previous year, 1999, Oare Village Hall Committee embarked on a Millennium project to produce a pictorial record in a book of day-to-day life in the area.

Photographs were taken over a two year period, including the Big Picture and work continued over the next nine years on compiling and editing all the information gathered. Not only was it an enormous project, said Bob King, one of the hall committee involved, it has resulted in an an A3 sized book of 104 pages.

Mr King said: “Because it took so long to produce meant we could include the new pavilion at Oare House and the Millennium Arch at Rainscombe Park.”

He said the book included a survey of village people, how long they had lived there and the work they did.

Copies cost £25 and are available from the White Hart pub in Oare or on www.oare-wilts.co.uk