The Axbridge Pageant has been a huge success for the town and its community. From the director John Bailey to the designer Juliet Maclay, the costumier Jackie Fowler and the manager John Kendal, a huge army of people worked behind the scenes to ensure its success.

The cast created a show of extraordinary diversity: musicians, narrators, singers, dancers, actors and many walk-on parts including the one I took on as the spiv. During the show, I was asked several questions as to how the script and scenes evolved and why certain scenes came about.

The original script dates to the late 1960s and was partly inspired by how history had been taught in the 20th century (royalty, dates and battles) and Knights' book, The Heart of Mendip.

It has been updated and changed, with the inclusion of the two world wars in each pageant in 2000, as these led to huge social changes to the towns people and society as a whole. This time we extended the pageant to embrace the people's century to bring it full circle to our own era with poetry and movement. We were also keen to introduce a certain amount of historic accuracy to the script. Romano-British remains (including a grave) have been found in the town suggesting some form of life took place here two millennia ago – so it made sense to reflect those early beginnings with Diane Lukins re-imagining of a Romano-British funeral.

Axbridge was not recorded as a town until the 10th century but somehow this had not been dramatised previously so we introduced a skirmish between Saxons and Danes to remind the audience that the first known borough was a fortified town built during an era of warlords and conflict borrowing some words from the Anglo Saxon Chronicle to add authenticity.

Several of the scenes seemed complete in themselves, in particular the St Dunstan, King John, the Elizabethan charters and the Lady Day Fair, while others needed more flesh text added – Queen Henrietta Maria, Monmouth's rebellion, the coming of the railway and Hannah More for instance.

Why certain scenes were adopted by the originators of the drama is of interest. Looking at the early drafts there was a concentration on monarchs whose dates and reigns were once drilled mantra-like into school children. For me, people like Richard Drew, the mayor in the 19th century, did far more for the community than most heads of state. Indeed, local engineers, who put in the utilities, the railway, and road builders, the brickies and chippies, the school teachers, shopkeepers and market traders, clubs and societies, local newspaper reporters, vicars and voluntary workers are all the unsung movers and shakers of the community.

No doubt future generations will add and subtract aspects of the town's social history. Certainly the role of the workhouse is ripe for dramatic inclusion in the drama, as was the coming of the bicycle a simple invention that led to a rapid widening of the gene pool at the end of the 19th century.

By 2020, some 75 years will have passed since the end of the Second World War allowing a new light to illuminate those key moments in the lives of the post-war generations. Whether its the pill, antibiotics, the NHS, the car or equal pay who knows? One thing is for sure: how we view the past and how our views change as time marches on – is almost as fascinating as the past itself.

Harry Mottram Old Church Road Axbridge