Over the Easter Weekend of 1970 Jack and Ena Carter put on an exhibition in Stowupland village hall of some 400 exhibits that they had got together of items of local history interest.  Most of the exhibits were donated by local people but some were borrowed from The Abbots Hall museum in Stowmarket and others from the Suffolk Records Office.

The Stowupland parish council had intended to hold an annual meeting to coincide with the opening day of the exhibition, but ‘the arrangers of this exhibition, Councillor Jack Carter and Mrs Carter, have been so successful, however, that there would be insufficient space left for the numbers expected to attend the meeting’ the parish meeting was postponed till Wednesday March 25th when details of the plans for the Stowmarket by-pass were to be revealed (Mercury & Chronicle press cutting 6/3/70).

Ena kept a detailed record in a simple spiral bound notebook of how the exhibits were arranged and who had donated what.. Visitors were also asked to sign the book.