“Skippies, Top and Whip, Hide and Seek”: Take a trip down memory lane with us
“The importance of these kind of projects is about bringing people together, forming friendships, talking about their life experiences, learning new skills.”
- Councillor Rob Higgins, Lord Mayor of Newcastle
This is exactly what our GeoStories projects are all about. They preserve local history stories for future generations, going deeper than the statistics that you find in history books, and in uncovering the stories, we find the beating heart of a community, the personalities, the people. Plus there’s the feel-good factor, the simplicity of bringing people together and them enjoying the connection with their communities. Our work in the east end of Newcastle did all of this and more.
We were invited to work at St Martin’s, a thriving community hub in Byker, by Yvonne Shanley, Befriending & Wellbeing Manager. Yvonne had heard of Digital Voice’s specialism in reminiscence projects and thought we’d be a great fit.
Running for almost five months, this project had the luxury of time and Julie Ballands, Digital Heritage Worker, credits this for ensuring that they were able to build trust with participants, who in turn have the time and space to grow in confidence:
“It meant we could work at a pace that suited people … quite a few of the group were, say, digitally afraid”
There were some real success stories, with one participant continuing to use her new found skills:
“I would advise anyone who wants to have a go, you’re never too old to learn and I’m now pushing ninety and I’m still having a go with a laptop to find out the things I want to find out.”
This slower pace also had a positive effect on people feeling able to share stories:
“People started off thinking the history was out there … what we ended up with was people’s own personal stories of that place.”
- Julie Ballands
And what a collection of stories we found! Byker & Walker have a rich history and this project uncovered first hand accounts of everything from shopping habits (when shop local didn’t need a hashtag), dramatic changes to housing, World War Two and why Byker Sands is called Byker Sands. These are very important stories to preserve, as one of the participants reflects:
“In years to come generations won’t know any of this, there’ll be no buildings left that remind them, whereas we can still pinpoint areas, even if areas have been totally modernised, there still a little bit of the old left that you can relate to.”
And this lovely glimpse behind the scenes of the project:
You can watch all of the films here: