The Down Memory Lane - Exhibition Success

Down Memory Lane
Oral History, Reminiscence & Archive Project - Exhibition 22nd September 2012

Now being used in Schools and other educational establishments, Senior Citizens Groups as well as a resource for those in the UK and throughout the World on-line.

What people wrote:

“I love my teddy and my family” (unknown Brownie) (in relation to what you would take down in the Air-raid Shelter - they could select 6 things that children may have had during the 1940's)

“I was amazed at all there was to see”

“Those good old days! I remember dried bananas, dried egg powder, tins of honeycomb and singing round the piano”

 “Bert, wish I’d known you in your heyday – you look so dashing in the photos!”

Sandra (PCSO)

“I never knew a camera in the olden days was so different” (unknown Brownie)

“I never realised how many games have changed”(unknown Brownie)

 

What people Said:

“Absolutely wonderful I think such a lot of work went into it. Its so valuable It stirred up so many memories for me” Elaine

“Really excellent Exhibition really good example of community involvement, so you’ve got intergeneration, young people working with older people”  Richard 

 

What a wonderful success Saturday was with The Down Memory Lane Project.

We had excellent feedback with over 100 people who attended.

 

Amongst those who attended and spoke to us:

Alastair Fear from the Abingdon Heritage Blog – who asked if it was possible to show some of the Down Memory Lane Exhibition at next years Heritage Day.

Alastair said:

I love to see the old photographs what people were like then and what they are like now. Also what they did – I’m amazed at people who are quite elderly have done so much in their lives. There is a lady here who used to drive a bus and she wouldn’t have had the chance if the War hadn’t come about. There are some amazing films as well. People interacting with Brownies and Scouts comparing what things were like then and now.  

 

Film Director Martyn Chalk -Chief Executive of Chalk Star Films

It’s great isn’t it? So much history and history in the community all these people getting together to remember. It’s important because all these things will just disappear otherwise. One of the most important things is to learn about our history and what has gone on in our past. I was lucky I got to grow up with my grandparents – but there are so many people my age that just don’t know these things.

 

Andrew Hart – Designer/Photographer Queo Design Group

One thing I found interesting was how communities have existed in the past. From a personal level it was how I felt integrated with that. I was also remembering things myself, the fruit gum box appearing on screen, I suddenly thought, oh I remember that!

I was born ten years after the War but there was still a lot of things hanging around from that time.. One of the things we do is take so much for granted. Today people will have a mobile phone, computers at least one car. I remember as a kid if somebody had a car we would all turn out in the street and watch it come down the road.  

 

Also big congratulations to the 1st Drayton Brownies who received their hostess badge - we appreciated all those cups of tea you made.

This project is going to go on to a number of schools and Senior Citizens groups. We were also being asked where else it would be shown. We are currently looking at offering some of the exhibition to organizations that are interested in putting the stories out on display.

                               Renee, Doris and Betty - Cinema section of the exhibition
                                                    

   Reg & his daughter watching his wife and her mother talk about being a Girl Guide

                                                       Burt with his Purely King Display 

Thank you once again to everybody involved and those organizations and individuals who gave their time.

Ending on response from a daughetr and granddaughter:

Norma (Betty & Reg’s daughter)

Betty and Reg my father in the Navy and my mother was in the Wrens. This project has given them a great deal of self-esteem. They have been so interested in it, my mum loved getting all her Brownie and Guide photos out.. I was a Guide and so were my children.

I’m staggered that this group of people have had so many experiences between them. 

 I think it’s important that projects about people like this one are made. Especially like this that involves all the different generations.

Betty & Reg’s Granddaughter

It is wonderful, it’s brought memories back of them talking about their childhood and also my neighbour is on the wall as well (known as Jane) so that was wonderful.   

                                  Renee Zarecky speaks to Rhianne Pope from the Oxford Mail 

Newspaper articles about Down Memory Lane:
Community Project Brings History To Life
Down Memory Lane - Tales of escaping Communist East

Thank you to all those individuals and organizations for supporting us and helping us make this happen. Through time, volunteering, equipment, resources, publicity or for directly taking part in this important Oral History, Reminiscence and Archive Project for future generations.

Thank you:
Gill Jaggers - Head of Marketing Pegasus Theatre
Roger Hammett – ‘Reel History’ Archive Partners BBC South
Suzy Sheriff & Matt Taylor - Manager & Assistant Manager Phoenix Picturehouse
Philip Cowen – Academic Subject Leader Newport Film School @ University of Wales
Newport
Louisa Weeks & Phil Ashworth - Oxford Bus Company
John Bayliss – Oxford Bus Museum Trust Ltd
Anne Ransome – Midcounties Co-operative Archive
Kay Harman - Little Nellie’s Sweet Shop, Henley
Ruth Hudson - 1st Drayton Brownies
Charlie Barrnett & Amy Paterson - John Mason Gifted & Talented Group
And the Ark T Centre, Cowley, Oxford

Thank you to the project and activity staff : Helen Jacobs – Artist, Painter, Sculpture &
Textiles, Isla Goldsmith – Thrive Project Officer, Gill Munday – Heritage Learning and
Access Manager County Museums, Helen Fountain – Reminiscence Officer, Museum of
Oxford, Nicholas Gill – Solo Jazz Piano & Musical Director of Oxford Classic Jazz

Down Memory Lane is funded by The Awards For All Grant – Lottery Fund.
The project was run with:
Forum Oasis Chair and Committee representatives
Renee Zarecky , Doris Hurley, Janet Churlish, Sylvia Pead and Mary Southey
Jackie Bowler – Abingdon Resource and Wellbeing Centre
Abigail Brown & Helen Jacobs – Arts Development Officer Vale of the White
Horse District Council
and
Pauline Krason, Pat Taylor, Kathryn Baggott , Sarah Holloway, Lina Mokute,
Christine Sadler, Jackie Richards and Ruth Evans

Cait Sweeney – Assistant Co-ordinator,

Documenter & Production Assistant

Sharon Woodward – Filmmaker/Artist in
Residence, Project Manager

Sharon Woodward - Projects and Films

Memories Near and Far

Cait Sweeney (Assisting Sharon Woodward in documenting the project) met some of the group for the first time. 20^th February.

Doris brought in a photo of herself in uniform (WAF) from 1944 which gave us the idea of bringing in my (Cait Sweeney’s) scanner and lap top for a week so anyone can bring in photo’s, memento’s, souvenirs etc from their childhood and we can make copies which will go towards the exhibition in September.

Doris also has a book  ‘From Peron to Piccadilly’ written by her brother-in-law…it’s in French, but she also has a typed translation. Could she bring these in when we have the scanner?…we could maybe us extracts and book cover in Exhibition.

Other areas discussed were, games they used to play as children, with hoops, marbles, skipping and chucks (Jacks). (How many of these are played today?).

Doris spoke about how the children from her school were evacuated to Exeter but she refused to go so she stayed in London. Earlier in the War she had been evacuated to her Godmother’s house ‘but that was different.

They remembered how front gardens in particular were full of flowers before the War and after they had been turned into vegetable patches.

Mary S loved going to school so much that she cried when she left aged 15. They talked about how different it was; learning was through repetition  .  Mary S gave us a demonstration how she can still say the alphabet backwards! 

Both Mary Southey and Doris remember boys getting the cane, but couldn’t recall any girls that had, whereas Mary Walsh remembers clearly girls getting the cane and was taught by ‘cross nuns’! 

Mary W. grew up in County Cork, leaving school at 16; she came to England in the ‘50s to work in service. 

We talked about the kind of entertainment that was available and the film-stars and ‘heart-throbs’ around at the time like; Errol Flynn, Stuart Granger, Richard Green the ‘Brylcream Boy’.
For Mary Southey it was all about the ‘Rockers and the Rollers’, she remembers how she used to take a matchstick and rub the end in soot from the fire to draw herself a beauty spot. She met her husband because she began writing to him in Malaysia…so pen pals first. Is Internet dating the modern day equivalent?

 There was talk of the ‘Potato Famine’ and the ‘Highland Clearances’, which whilst not in their living memory are stories or oral family histories that have been passed down through the generations.

Cait Sweeney - Assistant Co-ordinator   

Big thank you to Cait Sweeney for typing this up. 

Was really nice to have Mary Walsh join the planning meeting on Monday she had previously been involved in the taster workshops I ran, so  good to get her input. I think her experience of being in Service and coming from Ireland will offer a different historical perspective. So many people from all over have come to live in Oxfordshire I only wish I could capture everyone’s story.    

Pictures of my Grandmother, Grandfather and Great Grandfather -

Sharon Woodward

 Many things came up in the meeting that I hadn’t been aware of, such as evacuees being taught separately from the pupils who already attended village schools. How very different the education system is now to how it has been and the kind of environment the members of Abingdon Resource and Wellbeing Centre had grown up in. When Mary recited the alphabet backwards I remembered my grandfather doing this and how impressed I had been.  The schedule is coming together for April – September and looking like a very interesting selection of events I’m certainly looking forward to filming the memories and events that are taking place. I have also entered the Ration & Fashion; Women During the 2^nd World War into the Portobello Film Festival if they show them it will be great because it takes place in September and could coincide with the exhibition in Oxford. 

Sharon Woodward (Filmmaker/Artist in Residence)

Down Memory Lane is funded by The Awards For All Grant – Lottery Fund.

The project is being run with:

Forum Chairs (representing the Oasis group)

Renee Zarecky , Josie Kinduich , Doris Hurley, Janet Churlish, Sylvia  Pead and Mary Southey

Jackie Bowler – Abingdon Resource and Wellbeing Centre

Abigain Brown – Arts Development Officer Vale of the White Horse District Council

We would also like to thank:

Pauline Krason, Pat TaylorJean Abraham, Sarah Holloway, Lina Mokute, Christine Sadler and Jackie Richards.  

Sharon Woodward – Filmmaker/Artist in Residence, Project Co-ordinator

Cait Sweeney – Assistant Co-ordinator   

The Memories Begin

It was just before Christmas the 21^st December when I received the email telling me that the Senior Citizens - Oasis group based at The Abingdon Resource and Wellbeing Centre had been successful in their bid for funding from the Awards 4 All Lottery application. This was indeed wonderful and meant that the amazing stories of these incredible people are now going to be documented through digital video and archived for future generations.

So it was on Monday the 9^th January that we had our meeting with Mary Southey, Doris Hurley and Josie Kinduich from the group along with myself, Jackie Bowler from the Centre and Abigail Brown the Arts Development Officer from the Vale of the White Horse. Unfortunately Renee Zarecky wasn’t available on that day but I did manage to catch up with her a few days later and she let slip that she had once taken part in a show to entertain the troops. I’m really looking forward to that story.

We were all incredibly excited and we draw up a rough outline of the project. The ideas is that I will now schedule in events, activities, day trips and these will run from April – September. Some of the events and visits will be followed by group discussions that I will also be filming and I will also be interviewing people towards the final films. All this will be put towards an exhibition that will in the first instance be taking place in September. We are also discussing space for of the exhibition to be shown in other local museums. I have also had some interest from the Hanney group of Senior Citizens who would like us to visit after September, they would like to see some of the films and I hope to encourage the Oasis group to come along as well. I think it would be very inspiring to hear this group talk.

I have also had a meeting with a wonderful lady Anne Ransome who will be paying a visit to the group with some of the amazing photography and poster archive from the Co-op. She showed me photograph of an Co-op stall from the 1920’s which was not far from where I now live and I was really taken back with it.

We will also be working with a local school as well as the Daryton Brownie group and I’m looking forward to hearing a younger generations outlook on life without computers, mobiles, TV and lets face it general telephones.

So I will now be working closely with Forum Chairs: Renee Zarecky , Josie Kinduich , Doris Hurley, Janet Churlish, Sylvia  Pead and Mary Southey, Abigail Brown – Arts Development Officer (Vale of the White Horse), Jackie Bowler – Assistant Manager (Abingdon Wellbeing & Recourse Centre) as well as my new assistant Cait Sweeney who will be supporting me in some of the co-ordination.

I would also like to thank welcome those of you who have shown an interested in this project

I am so please that I made the two pilot films Ration and Fashion as well as the Women During the 2^nd World War I think they give some insight into what is possible in filming the memories of these amazing group.

I also feel incredibly privileged to be allowed into the past of people’s lives and feels that they have allowed me a little bit of my Grandmother back. That I somehow understand why she believed and thought certain things now, that I didn’t when I was younger, it is indeed a bonus to find that the group you are working with have given you back some memories of your own.

Down Memory Lane is funded by The Awards For All Grant – Lottery Fund.

The project is being run with:

Forum Chairs (representing the Oasis group)

Renee Zarecky , Josie Kinduich , Doris Hurley, Janet Churlish, Sylvia  Pead and Mary Southey

Jackie Bowler – Abingdon Resource and Wellbeing Centre

Abigain Brown – Arts Development Officer Vale of the White Horse District Council

We would also like to thank:

Pauline Krason, Pat TaylorJean Abraham, Sarah Holloway, Lina Mokute, Christine Sadler and Jackie Richards. 

Cait Sweeney – Assistant Co-ordinator   

Anybody who is interested:

We would like to hear from local businesses, educational establishments or individuals who feel they could offer something to the project for example a Restaurant who might be interested in making a Wartime meal using rations that were available at the time or a Garden project who might be interested in revisiting the ‘Dig for Victory’ Campaign.    

Those organisations that have already contributed:

The Oxford Bus Company

The Oxford Bus Museum

The Phoenix Picture House

Newport Film School (Philip Cowan)

Little Nellies (Traditional Sweet Shop) Henley (Kate Harman)

Those who would like to contribute in someway can contact local filmmaker Sharon Woodward info@mischiefpictures.co.uk 

Project Co-ordinator and Filmmaker:

Sharon Woodward

Sharon is an Independent Filmmaker, Project Manager and Media Tutor she has over the years received a number of awards for her documentary work as well as corporate production. She trained at Newport Film School, the National Film and Television School and with BBC Wale and Tyne Tees Television. 

This is a wonderful opportunity to take part in documenting the past for future generations.

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