A REUNION is planned for staff at Nelson’s famous Victory V factory as part of the town’s Lancashire Day celebrations.

Promoters of the red rose spectacular are keen to trace as many workers as possible from the former lozenge makers, in Chapel Street, before the event on November 26.

Jelly babies, also pioneered in the Pendle town in the 19th century, will be another centrepiece of the heritage festival, and ex-weavers from Brook Street Mill are being encouraged along.

As in previous years, the Lancashire Day celebrations will also double up as the town’s festive lights switch-on.

Coun Jonathan Eyre, the borough’s tourism lead member, said: “This will be our best Lancashire Day yet - and Nelson’s celebrations are already renowned for being the biggest in the county.”

Former mayor Coun Tony Beckett, named the best town crier in the North West, will read out the official proclamation for Lancashire Day.

He said: “Seven hundred years after the first elected representatives went to Westminster to join King Edward I’s Model Parliament, we’re still celebrating what it means to be a Lancastrian.”

Librarians are running a special display on factory life in Nelson, which will also focus on Walter Pollard’s Ltd, at Malvern Mill.

Mayor of Pendle Coun Nadeem Ahmed will launch the celebrations just before 11am.

Morris dancing from the Britannia Coconutters and popular sideshow attraction Granny Turismo have been lined up.

Dialect poetry will come courtesy of Colne & District Writers’ Circle, and the winners of a competition to translate the dialect phrases, on new stone cubes near The Shuttle monument, will be named.

Other contributors include Borderline Theatre Company, with poetry readings, Nelson Brass Band, and acoustic performers Tom and Giz.

Dr Edward Smith produced the first Victory V lozenges in the 1800s, the originals containing liquorice, chloroform and ether.

The Nelson works, where Wavelengths now stands, was pulled down in the 1980s and lozenges are today made in Devon.