THE WHITE Rose blossomed on jackets and flags as proud locals gathered to celebrate Yorkshire Day.
Young and old congregated at Saddleworth Museum in Uppermill to hear the Yorkshire Declaration of Integrity read by Gilbert Symes at 11.38am – marking 1,138 years since Yorkshire was created. 
A minute’s applause was held in memory of Roy Bardsley, a founding member and secretary of the White Rose Society who died earlier this year aged 76 following a long illness.
Dobcross Brass Monkeys entertained and poems by Ammon Wrigley were recited, praising the moorland and village life in and around Saddleworth.
Saddleworth Parish Council Chairman Cllr Graham Sheldon decked the poet’s statue with a wreath of white roses before calling on residents to preserve the area’s splendour.
“Saddleworth is a beautiful and unique area so let’s look after it and work together to keep it that way,” he urged.
Mayor of Oldham John Hudson, who lives in Greenfield, added: “I am very proud to have this chain around my neck and to be wearing it as a Saddleworth person for the people of Saddleworth.”
Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Debbie Abrahams joined the celebrations, praising Saddleworth’s historical traditions of Whit Friday, brass bands and famous daughter suffragette Annie Kenney. 
She joked she put aside the county “rift” by marrying a Lancastrian – but onlookers were less pleased with her slip-up reference to Saddleworth’s importance to the cotton, rather than wool, industry.
Proceedings were rounded off by Doreen Ainscote, from The Friends of Real Lancashire, who encouraged the counties to work together because of their shared common boundaries.
“However many times they move our boundaries because of administration reasons doesn’t change what they mean to us. We can work together to celebrate that,” she insisted.
Waving flags and wearing white roses, residents paraded along High Street to King George V Playing Fields for the Country Fair’, with an afternoon of games, food and stalls.
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