CELEBRATING their centenary with a trio of events, the "Ladies' Night" group at Leamington Road Baptist Church, Blackburn, begin next Wednesday with local historian Barbara Riding taking them back to their beginnings with memories and photographs -- including the one above of their forerunners having fun.

The event was the staging in 1928 of Sheridan's famous 18th-century comedy 'The School for Scandal' at the church.

At the time, the group -- which began in 1903 as a branch of the Free Church Girls' Guild after it was founded in Blackburn the previous year -- was undergoing a revival, having been on the brink of closing down in the early 1920s through lack of support.

But the group's earliest minute book, dated 1926, shows how it had got back on its feet with the membership standing at 52.

Nowadays, the group meets for talks, entertainment, outings and fund-raising events for the Leamington Road church and charities. But when they were founded among Blackburn's Free Churches, the Girls' Guilds provided a form of further education at a time when the school-leaving age was as low as eleven -- through evening classes, libraries and learning centres.

Among the group's souvenirs is this 1904 membership card in the name of Mary Johnston and the syllabus for the branch's meetings included talks and instruction in cookery, nursing, needlework, embroidery, literature and nature study.

As the "girls" grew older, the group's title just became The Guild and in 1985 it changed to the Ladies' Night.

The other events marking their centenary are a thanksgiving service conducted by members at the church on Sunday, March 2, and a celebration party, with entertainment and supper on March 5. Details are available from chairman Mrs Brenda Seed on 01254-240454.