Latest News
January 2008
Collingwood School, Spring Gardens, about 1950
The project recently received this photograph as part of an email, the email goes on to say "I contiue to find other photographs taken while I was living in North Shields which might be of interest. Here is one of my classroom at Collingwood School, Spring Gardens, about 1950. Recognise anybody? Perhaps someone may remember Mr Turnbull, the headmaster and others on the staff."
Do you recognise anyone on the photograph? If so please contact us, via the contact page on the website.
Previous News
October 2007
Age takes Centre Stage 2007
This is the time of year when we focus on Age Takes Centre Stage activities, beginning with the launch, which this year was held at Segedunum Museum in Wallsend. We thoroughly enjoyed being in the museum and meeting lots of people. Thanks go to volunteers Barbara Docherty, Anne Harrison, Meg and Bill Stephenson and Joyce Haley for explaining the work of the project to so many people on the day.
Library Club AGM and 100 Years of Ringtons Tea
Many thanks to Jim Borthwick of Ringtons for giving such a fascinating talk about the history of Ringtons, and also for providing such a sumptuous selection of biscuits to share with our post-meeting cuppa (Ringtons of course!)
Success at Age Takes Centre Stage Awards 2007
We are delighted that two of our volunteers, Maureen McMurchie and Toffee Snowdon, were part of the successful ‘Lasses Lives' project which has won an Age Takes Centre Stage award in the ‘Older People Together' category. They were part of a group, co-ordinated by the GiFFT project, who met at Rosebery Court in Monkseaton for several weeks to talk about their experiences of health care, ailments and remedies. As well as the award, the group have had a display of their work on show at various events in the area and are finalising publication of a booklet of their reminiscences. Needless to say, these will also be coming to our website in the very near future.
New material donated
Occasionally we are given new material which can be used in the project's work. Recently we have been given a wonderful set of newspaper cuttings which provide images of the effects of World War II on both the Home Front and abroad. One of the images is shown here, a stationary bus has been hurled against a building, pinning the radiator to the window sills of an upper floor. Fortunately, the driver, passengers and conductor had taken shelter before the event
We are also building up a collection of local newspaper cuttings, which give a flavour of local life in 20 th century. For example, can anyone remember E H Askew's store in Whitley Bay?
September 2007
The project has been invited to be part of the group of organisations looking at ways of celebrating 100 years of Wallsend Town Hall. The Town Hall was opened in 1908 and has been in constant use since. A chance conversation has led us to explore the idea of talking to people involved in the Police Courts, which form part of the Town Hall site and we'll be doing this in partnership with North East Police History Society. The society will provide their expertise in the field of police history and we'll undertake the oral history and reminiscence aspect. All of this will lead to a fantastic exhibition in about September 2008, in time for the actual date of the anniversary.
Congratulations to Living History North East
One of our partner organisations, Living History North East, has recently moved into its new premises in the Donnison School in Sunderland. The school buildings, which date back to Georgian times have been upgraded so that LHNE can provide more training opportunities for local oral historians. Hopefully, some of our volunteers will be going over to the Donnison in the near future to hone their own skills and learn new ones.
Members of North East Oral History Network
The project is a member of the North East Oral History Network, which was set up in 2003 to provide support for individuals and organisations undertaking oral history projects. Membership means that we can meet with other people doing similar work across the North East, share good practice and learn new skills.
August 2007
Another successful Library Club Trip
The Library Club is on its summer break at the moment after finishing off its year of activities with a successful trip to Ripley Castle. The club will be back in action in September, when guest speaker Ken Banks, of North East Police History Society will talk about the history of policing in Tynemouth and North Shields.
Last year we were able to have two promotional banners designed for us and they've proved really useful when we go out and about to talk about our work. Recently we've taken then to a number of presentations in North Tyneside and they have been much admired. Many thanks to Awards for All for providing the funding
July 2007
Presentation to Oral History Society Annual Conference
We were delighted to be invited to do a presentation of our work to the Oral History Society's national conference, which took place in London earlier this month. The theme was 'Making Community Oral Histories' and our website fitted the bill perfectly, because of all the work we do encouraging local people to contribute their stories. Delegates at the conference were really interested in what we do and enjoyed the presentation. It was also good for us to meet other people from around the country who have the same interests as ourselves. A very enjoyable occasion all round.
June 2007
Coming soon: New National Service Memories
In the next couple of weeks we'll be adding a new set of memories about National Service to the site. These have been contibuted by a group of local volunteers who met over a period of weeks to identify subjects and prepare the stories to go with them. The memories have been put together in a booklet which has just been published, together with a CD of the group telling the stories. Contact Kath Smith via the contact us page of this web site if you'd like to find out more about the booklet or CD.
May 2007
We are delighted to announce that the project has secured funding for a further 3 years of work, thanks to continuing support from Northern Rock Foundation and Community Foundation. This will enable us to collect and add new memories to our website and also to develop our range of booklets.
April 2007
Link with North East Police History Society.
Ken Banks, Vice Chairman of this society, got in touch with us recently and told us some wonderful stories about his experience of working in the County Borough of Tynemouth police for 22 years. He's coming to talk to members of North Shields Library Club on September 5th and will bring some memorabilia with him to illustrate his talk. As well as this he's going to be working with the project to add new memories of police life to the website. Many thanks Ken.
March 2007
Celebrating Reminiscence in North Tyneside
24 older people from across North Tyneside came together at North Shields' Riverside Centre to celebrate the value of the reminiscence work which is going on in the area at the moment. All those attending have contributed reminiscences to our own project, as well as to Tyne & Wear Museum Service and The GIfTT project. Alex Magin of TWMS brought along one of the Museum Services' new loans boxes, the contents of which caused great amusement among delegates.
Thanks to Mayor's Wellbeing Fund Project contributors from Forest Hall and North Shields enjoyed a day out courtesy of the Mayor's Wellbeing Fund this month. 43 friends and volunteers enjoyed looking at the new exhibits, paintings and banners depicting mining life in the North East.
December 2006
Merry Christmas
In our constant quest for more memorable stories for the site we are focusing for the next few weeks on 'Christmas Memories'. We already have a few good stories but would love to have some more. So, get writing and let us have your reminiscences of Christmas past.
And a Merry Christmas to you all from the project team!
October 2006
Welcome to our updated and redesigned website. All of the familiar sections are still here but you can now search the site using the 'search' button. There are lots of new memories and some new photographs, with more to be added over the next few months. There are also sections showing our newsletters and information about North Shieds Library Club activities. We've tried very hard to make the site as accessible as possible, so do try out all the buttons to make the text bigger. We hope you enjoy browsing the site as much as we enjoy putting the material together.
September 2006
Our 'Working Lives' project volunteers spent an enjoyable and informative afternoon visiting the Working Lives Gallery at Discovery Museum today. We watched a film show of various people talking about their own working life and looked at the way technology has changed the way we do our work. We were guided on our tour by Alex Magin, a member of the Tyne & Wear Museum Service Outreach Team. After the tour we reconvened in the Discovery Cafe for refreshments and to talk about what we'd seen.
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August 2006
We're in the very last stages of the website redesign, so you'll soon be able to see the results of all the hard work that's been going on behind the scenes. It's a little bit like working with a pantomime horse at the moment, with the ‘front end’ of the site, the crisp clean design with improved accessibility, being joined on to the ‘back end’ – the sophisticated database system that has now been created.
While all this is happening memories continue coming into the site and we've also been out and about, collecting more. Watch out for new memories on; Working Lives, Easter Traditions and Childhood. We estimate that once all the new material is loaded we’ll have around 400 memories for you to look at.
May 2006
Lots of things have been happening since our last update in February. We've now installed all of the new technology and are now deciding how best to finalise the upgrade of the website. In the meantime we continue to collect memories which are being stored in our office until they can be published on the site. We would like to thank our regular contributors for continuing to provide such interesting material and also welcome some new contributors. In particular those residents of Eccles Court, Backworth and Bewicke Court, Willington Quay who have been working with us over Easter. Thanks to their contributions we will be adding a substantial new selection of memories associated with Easter Traditions, and we hope to continue working with them in the summer.
February 2006
The work to upgrade the site is continuing and we are delighted to say that some of the new hardware and software has now arrived, ready for installation. We've also been using this time to sort out some of the new memories ready for publication once all the upgrading has been done.
December 2005
The project has been successful in securing funds from Awards for All to replace the hardware and upgrade the software that we use to maintain the website. As part of the upgrading process we will be giving the site a new look and also improving its access for people with hearing or sight impairments. While all the changes are being made we will be more than happy to continue to receive your memories but we won't be publishing any new material until all the new technology is in place. We expect this to take about three months, so by Easter 2006 we should be back with a new look site and lots of new memories and features. In the meantime, we'll keep you updated with progress.