We are delighted to say that Screen Archive South East‘s HLF funded Movies and Memories project has gotten off to a flying start since its start in July 2012! Gillian and Sara, the project officers, have been making contact with day centers, history groups, museums, libraries and participants across the project’s four West Sussex towns of Bognor Regis, Littlehampton, Shoreham-by-Sea and Worthing. We are extremely encouraged by the numbers of people and organisations who have already signed up to be involved over the next 12 months.
Following our first pilot Oral History session on 7th September at the Glebelands Day Centre in Shoreham, we’d like to give a big thank you Julie Moore and Vicki Hawkins and their team for their professional support, and to the willing participants Charles, Edward, Ted, John, Kath, Ron and Anne.
Two compilations of SASE archive film were screened during the session to stimulate the group’s memories, whose ages ranged between 60 and 93 years of age. The Childhood & Shoreham-by-Sea film compilations comprised of local newsreels and amateur home movies that document the daily life of people between the years of 1920 and 1970. Just a few of the films included were; ‘Ancient & Modern,’ by Shippam Ltd, ‘Portrait of a little boy‘ by Ralph Staley, home movies from the Greenshields Family, the ‘Regis Review 1936’ by the Bognor Regis Film Society, local government film ‘Learning for Earning’ and ‘Rosemary 1937-39’ from the Gowlland family.
The films stimulated many stories with participants recollecting early childhood games, playing hula-hoop, erecting tents and camping in their back-gardens, getting lost in giant mazes, the etiquette of afternoon tea and even girls’ gym knickers!
The conversations took us in lots of directions and we were also captivated by Charles’ stories of working as an assistant to fashion designer Norman Hartnell, stitching together fancy dress costumes whilst stationed in Reykavik, Iceland during WWII. We were heartened by Ted’s romantic tale of when he first met and then married his wife and Ron’s memories of driving Oliver Reed, the Hollywood actor, in his taxi when he was a London cabby.
This was just the first session at Glebelands and we will be returning to meet more of the day center’s customers in the coming months.
For further information about the project, contact Sara or Gillian:
T: 01273 643213
E: moviesandmemories@brighton.ac.uk
You can follow us on Facebook, where you can see more photos we have taken of events and activities.
www.facebook.com/moviesandmemories.sase
