| Remembering Wivenhoe: Our
Community Oral
History -
August, 2004
The `Remembering Wivenhoe' Oral History Project is off to a good start. We are aiming to record eighty interviews with local people, which will be the basis of a local oral history book and a video, and also archived for others to use in the future. The project started with three events, all drawing good numbers: a tent with a specially made banner at the May Fair on 31 May; a part in the anniversary D-Day meeting on 4 June organised by Jacqueline Thomas in the Wivenhoe library, at which Bill Ellis told the story of the construction of the Mulberry Harbours, and the Project's launch meeting at the British Legion on 2 June, 2004. At the launch, which was chaired by the Rev David Thomas and addressed by the Mayor Councillor Peter Hill, the veteran Suffolk oral historian Ronald Blythe spoke poetically about the value of recorded memories; Joan Gifford sang folksongs, and we listened to a recording made thirty years ago with Etta Dan, who was a Wivenhoe school teacher in the early 20th century. As a result of this publicity, and also the `Wivenhoe Memories' exhibition of photographs and documents organised by John Stewart which also drew in many long-standing Wivenhovians, we have received an encouraging number of offers from people willing to be recorded for the project, and also of volunteers to help with the interviewing, historical research and organising events. Our team of fifteen interviewers has already begun recording, beginning with the older generations - and some brilliant stories. More news soon… For more information, please contact Brenda Corti and Paul Thompson, 5 West St, Wivenhoe. Tel: 01206 824644 |
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