A PROFESSIONAL playwright has been brought in to pen Cononley's unique millennium community play after the project received financial backing from lottery bosses.

The Awards for All programme, linked to the National Lottery, has given organisers £4,500 towards the cost of putting on the ambitious performance set to take place later this year.

The play will feature village life through the ages as well as looking to the future.

Part of the cash grant has been used to secure the services of professional playwright and advisor Keith Bowen, from the Different Stages Theatre Company.

He will now be working with villagers to produce a number of performances scheduled for October.

The community play group has also been working closely with the team producing the history of Cononley book and hopes the publication and launch of the book will coincide with performances of the play.

Group chairman Dave Potts told the Herald: "It has taken us some time to get our thoughts together, but we believe that Keith Bowen has the right skills and abilities to help the village produce something really memorable for this celebration.

"He has a wealth of ideas and a real feel for this community."

And David Gulliver, who is a member of the play group and co-author of the history book, added: "The play and the book will be memorable and fitting tributes to a community that has much to celebrate.

"It will also be interesting to speculate on what the future might hold for this community."

Organisers say the play will be a unique one-off event which will be both entertaining and a celebration of life in the village.

There will be plenty of opportunities for local people to get involved and information on how to do this will be available soon.

It is envisaged the project will start with a series of fun workshops in July to explore ideas and try to discover how many people are keen to participate.

Cononley folk have until tomorrow (Saturday) to subscribe to the new history book and get their name in printed in the tome. For more details telephone 01535 637962.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.