About 20 years before, Michael Allfrey had cut down an oak tree that was growing in the field where the new Cradley school was built.
The wood was taken to Bishops Frome saw mills to be cut into planks which were then stored at Michael's farm.
With Peter Baker's help, the planks were taken to Ridgeway Joinery where John Monk offered to cut them into workable lengths. Peter delivered them to Brian Kingsley who then went to work on the wood, cut it again and polished it to its present golden colour.
He then crafted the box so that the book fitted perfectly.

Alan Edwards offered to carve the inscription and after doing so, left his trademark, a carved acorn.

The whole project involved a large number of people in the villages who all enjoyed working on it and the Parish Council hope this beautiful book and its oak box will remain an invaluable memory of life in the villages in the year 2000

Have a look next time you are in the Village Hall

One of the suggestions was a book, in which village life in Cradley and Storridge in the year 2000, could be recorded.

Elizabeth Hunt volunteered to organise the project and a sub-committee of Fred Beard, John Rowe, David Creed-Newton and Diana Cale was appointed with Elizabeth.

The present format was selected after much discussion, having consulted the Hereford Archive office, the Police and the school so that the Data Protection Act was not breached and offence was not caused to people living in the villages.

Over 40 contacts wrote the headings for their own organisations, which were then typed by the Parish council's Clerk, Pat Courtney.

The organisers then took endless time and effort getting their members to sign the relevant pages and David Townsend, Headmaster of Cradley School, got all the children and staff in the school to sign their page.

Acid free paper and biro pens with archival ink were used for greater preservation.

Paul and Wynnell Hunt battled through the great floods of Autumn 2000 to visit a map shop in Upton-on-Severn to obtain several ordnance survey maps which they then joined together to enable the villages to be centralised on the map.

The resulting maps give a wonderful picture of both villages, their position, houses and roads.

Wynnell Hunt also wrote the history of the villages from pre-historic times to the present day.

John Drummond took the photographs, even going to a first floor bedroom of a house to get a better view! David Creed-Newton then printed off the photographs on his computer.

A truly communial effort from Cradley and Storridge residents to mark the Millenium