I have had a variety of job roles over the past 20 years, including local government, theatre and working as a freelance producer and project manager. I realised a couple of years ago that heritage projects seemed to find me, especially ones linked to anniversaries.
Rayleigh Windmill
My first project was 12 Foot Under. I was asked by the local authority I was working for at the time to create a reminiscence project about the flooding of Canvey Island (Essex) in 1953. I was new to Arts Development and had never done any work around heritage before. To be honest, I was worried the project would bring back bad memories and might turn out to be quite dark. I could not have been more wrong. We contracted the brilliant Rag Roof Theatre Company to write and direct a community play and worked with the local heritage centre to create an online archive.
I learnt so much from this project and thoroughly enjoyed being a part of it. The play was written from research and oral history accounts from the floods. The cast were made up of all ages and 100s of people came to see the show.
Theatre is my background and it was so lovely to see the impact a play could have on a community. But it wasn’t my favourite part of the project. We held two small workshops delivered by older adults to young people. One was in hair and make-up, the other in cooking. The older people got to teach the participants a bit about what life had been like in 1953 and ultimately, we found so many connections. Cross generational work can be so powerful. It helps us learn about history first-hand and helps us see that some things are the same for every generation.
12 Foot Under https://www.canveyisland.org/category/history-2/floods/the-play-a-town-in-the-sea-2004
When I moved on to my next job, I found out that the local windmill was coming up to its 200th anniversary. The second time around I knew how much fun a heritage project could be and the impact it could have on the community. The windmill was also a building I had grown up seeing on a regular basis and I enjoyed finding out more about its history.
I left the position before the end of the project, but not before I had set the work in motion and of course I checked in on the end result to see how things had gone.
Rayleigh Windmill 200th Anniversary http://www.rochforddistricthistory.org.uk/category_id__48_path__0p67p106p74p.aspx
In 2012 I was working for Southend Theatres and had the pleasure of running a project to celebrate the centenary of my favourite theatre, The Palace Theatre in Westcliff.
This project filled me with joy (and a little stress) from start to finish. Firstly, I got to work with the brilliant Palace Theatre Club, a charity that supports the theatre in its current state and had campaigned to keep the building open on many occasions. I also got to share the story of this beautiful building with the local community.
We planned a whole year of events that included open days, a community play and a weekend where we took the theatre back to its 1930s cinema days. We worked with a whole range of people, of all sorts of ages and the legacy of the project is an online archive.
Palace Theatre Centenary https://www.palacetheatreclub.org.uk/content/palace-theatre/centenary-2012
My first project as a freelance project manager was also a heritage project. Dancing Back to 1914 was a WW1 centenary project for Wiltshire Youth Arts Partnership (WYAP). The project saw groups of young people all over Wiltshire explore the counties World War 1 history through links with local museums and of course dancing.
I had just moved to the county and this project showed me how learning about the history of an area can help you find your place in it. Understanding where we are living and especially learning about people who have lived there can help us see ourselves and where we fit in.
Dancing Back to 1914 https://theartsinwiltshire.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/dancing-back-to-1914-final-celebration-and-sharing/
As Dancing Back to 1914 came to an end I worked with WYAP to submit a bid to HLF for The Fabric of Life, an LGBT+ history project with a focus on fashion. I would say this project taught me the most out of all of the heritage projects I have managed. I knew very little about LGBT+ history and, like 12 Foot Under, I was concerned that the past was going to be really negative. Again, I was wrong! We would not have been doing our job right if we had left out the dark parts of LGBT+ history, but there was also a lot to celebrate.
We worked with a brilliant group of young people on this project, and a highlight for me was taking them to the V&A in London. Our participants also helped me to see that the heritage of marginalised groups shouldn’t just be celebrated for one month or event each year, but should be integrated into everyone’s history, all year round.
Fabric of Life https://wshc.org.uk/home/news/item/fabric-of-life.html
Now I am looking forward to running my first project as Yesterday’s Story CIC. I shall be drawing on everything I have learnt from these past projects and I am excited about what is ahead.
