The Braddle Hollow and District History Society has begun inventing scandals about its own past. The decision follows a finding by its video committee. Footage of residents recoiling from old photographs, the committee found, attracts more attention than the photographs.

At its meeting on Tuesday, the society adopted a formal protocol. Members shown images of the mill, the footbridge and the 1954 Sunday school outing are now expected to gasp, lean back, or say "no" quietly. Members who fail to react are re-shown the image with a caption.

The protocol follows a further discovery. A recording of Mrs Elspeth Tanner being handed a picture of the mill pond, and appearing greatly disturbed by it, was watched by more people than had visited the society's archive room in the preceding decade. Mrs Tanner said she had been told the pond was "much worse" than it looked.

The new material

Unable to locate genuine scandals, the society has begun writing them. A photograph of two men outside the cooperage has been relabelled as evidence of a feud. A blank patch of field behind the chapel is now described, in the society's video captions, as the site of a dispute "the village does not discuss".

The society's archivist, Mr Douglas Pew, has raised objections. Mr Pew notes that the cooperage photograph shows two brothers at a wedding. He adds that the field is a field. He has also questioned the winter bulletin, which refers to a duel its own editorial notes describe as "not yet confirmed, but promising". His letter to the committee was read aloud on Tuesday and described by the chair as "strong reaction footage".

Mr Pew has since been filmed reacting to his own letter. The clip is the society's most-watched item to date.

What happens next

The committee has asked members to bring forward photographs of ancestors who look guilty, shifty or "as if they know something". Images of ordinary people standing in doorways will be accepted if the doorway is described as controversial.

A planned exhibition of the mill collection has been re-titled to suggest the mill conceals a secret. Society chair Mrs Gloria Fenn said the decision had been a difficult one. It was taken after the committee found that visitors lingered in front of pictures they had been told not to trust.

The Christmas schedule includes a filmed walk in which Mrs Fenn stops at several locations and says "well" in a loaded manner. Mrs Fenn said the important thing was to remain authentic to how Braddle Hollow really was.