Most communities in Northern Ireland can boast of local folk from days of yore (and from more recent times too) who’ve made their mark on history, but it’s an unusual privilege to have them compiled alphabetically, in categories, in a handy book!

Johnny the Jig adorns the cover of a new publication about Holywood, County Down, which is an A to Z of Who’s Who in the town, richly garnished with When, Where, Why and How!

I caught my first fleeting glimpse of Johnny in the mid-1950s, through a side-window of dad’s doddery-old black Ford Prefect, en route from Enniskillen to Bangor.

Dad drove even slower to let me see the enchanting, sculpted, barefoot figure of little Johnny playing an accordion.

Johnny was sculptress Sophia Rosamond Praeger’s gift to Holywood in memory of local Boy Scout Fergus Morton, killed in a road accident while doing ‘Bob a Job’ in 1952.

Praeger is one of around 70 individuals and families in Holywood People, a book packed with folk from past and present, associated with town and the surrounding district.

Compiled by the History Group from the Holywood District University of the Third Age (U3A), it’s about people from business and industry - churchmen, educationalists, politicians, community stalwarts and sports celebrities.

“The only side I’m on is sanity,” cartoonist Rowel Friers once quipped “I just make fun of all the madness.”

Rowel was describing his work as a caricaturist and best-known cartoonist of the Troubles in Ulster.

Rowel and his wife Yvonne “were a great team” the book’s arts section recounts “she enjoyed drama and he enjoyed designing the stage sets - first for Fisherwick Dramatic Society and then for Holywood Players.”

Together with a friend “Yvonne ran a playgroup in ‘unused space’ in the Friers family home on the corner of Brook Street and Victoria Road (in Holywood) for over 30 years.”

Rowel’s cartoons were published in enough newspapers and magazines to fill the shelves of any thriving newsagent - Punch, the Radio Times, London Opinion, the Daily Express, the Sunday Independent, Dublin Opinion, the Northern Whig, the News Letter, the Irish Times and the Belfast Telegraph.

John T Davis is also in the book’s arts section, Northern Ireland’s most distinctive documentary film-maker and cinematographer, born in Holywood in 1947.

Davis is known for films like Shellshock Rock (1979), Route 66 (1985) and Hobo (1991) which required him to spend three months living as a ‘drifter’ with a concealed camera, jumping freight trains.

Amongst his more recent movies are Traveller (2000), A House Divided (2003), and Tailwind (2008).

Holywood People includes John and Henry Campbell, after whom Campbell College was named.

The Campbell family, who’d strong connections with the Holywood district, bought Newtownabbey’s Mossley Mill in 1859 where “they pursued the philanthropic model of Victorian socialism, building a village with a school and leisure facilities for their workforce.”

The earliest historic figure, in the section about religion, is Laisrén Mac Nasca (Saint Laisrén), a holy man best-known as the founder of the town’s ancient Priory, completed around the year 635.

The Irish name for the town is called after him - Ard Mhic Nasca, meaning ‘the height of Nasca’s son.’

“It is thus to Laisrén that the town owes its origins,” the book confirms, and the remains of the Old Priory are still standing. A house nearby called Willesden, now demolished, was the home of Alexander Finlay who moved to Holywood when he married Matilda Carson in 1858.

Their sons Archie, Herbert and Robert managed the famous Finlay soapmaking business, started by Alexander’s father in 1798.

In various Belfast factories the company made candles and a wide range of soaps, including Pure Curd soap for washing muslin and Pine Tar soap for skin complaints.

Queen’s Pale, Silkstone and Nimrod soaps were the most widely used domestic soaps in the country before Alexander Finlay Ltd finally closed down in 1949.

The books long list of successful industrialists includes Miss Annette Marsh from Victoria Road, the last member of the Quaker Marsh family who established large biscuit factories in Belfast.

Holywood People claims that the Crosslé Car Company “might be considered one of Holywood’s best-kept secrets.”

Born in Scotland in 1931, John Crosslé bought property in the town in 1960 and set up what became the world’s longest-surviving racing car business.

Crosslé-manufactured cars sped John Watson, Eddie Jordan, Eddie Irvine and Nigel Mansell towards many chequered flags!

And finally, far from the madding mill, soap-works or racetrack, Holywood boasts more delicate roots!

The district was the location for the discovery of the famous wild Irish Rose, rosa Hibernica, also known as the ‘Holywood rose’ or ‘Templeton’s rose’ after its discovery in 1795 by John Templeton.

Holywood People at £5, with all profits going to charity, is available by e-mail from rmasefield@hotmail.com or at www.colourpointbooks.co.uk