#hlfsupported

This second half of my traineeship has been packed with so much activity and exciting opportunities to get involved with, from event planning and volunteer training, to art design and workshop delivering. At Fulham Palace I recently helped organise and run their ‘Tremendous Tudors’ family activity day for over 250 people. I planned various craft activities such as homemade Tudor bath bombs and Tudor rose badges – the kids all loved it! We had a costumed storyteller who took everyone on a tour of Palace in character and we ran some object handling stalls as well. At Orleans House Gallery I have been developing my skills in planning and delivery of art sessions through leading my own art clubs. For the first session I tried to embed Science into Art by planning a session around creating a galaxy night sky picture. We used printing to decorate a moon, marbling to decorate planets and then created our own star sign constellations with construction sticks and foil. In the end of course, we covered our night sky in glitter for a really sparkly piece of art!

I have also had the chance to attend some incredibly interesting trainings and conferences over the past couple of months. A particular highlight was getting to attend the first ever ‘Culture of Lates’ conference that focused on developing more innovative, interactive 'Lates' in museums and galleries, and how they can generate income for the sector – it was a really enlightening conference to be a part of. Another excellent workshop was the V & A’s ‘Informing Change: Engaging LGBTQ Audiences’ session, which was a really inspiring lesson on how to better include and represent queer history in collections. I found it especially important to learn about the importance of language; of cataloguing and categorising collections to include other audiences. Having the opportunity to  on interesting and inspiring trainings like these was another of the highlights of my traineeship overall. It gave me the chance to learn something new and connect with a variety of professionals in the sector as well.

Going forward, I have been very lucky to have been offered the position of Volunteer Development Officer (career break cover), at Fulham Palace until December. I am extremely excited to take on this challenging and very busy role, not only to utilise the plethora of skills I have developed over the past 6 months, but to develop my skillset further in working with the amazing team of over 250 volunteers!

Everything I have learned, and all the experience I have gained has given me an amazing foundation to take forward with me in my future role, and for that I will be incredibly grateful to first and foremost my mentor Heather Whitt, as well as the incredibly supportive Education Teams of both Orleans House Gallery and Fulham Palace. I wish the apprentices Rosie, Ben and Carys all the luck and success in the world in finishing off their own placements and going onto what I’m sure will be amazing careers.

"I have always been fascinated by history, and the opportunity to research the lives of people like me really appealed,” explains Victoria.

"I asked straightaway whether it was something I could get involved in."

Thanks to funding from the National Lottery, Victoria, as part of a small team, spent the next six months building a picture of individuals’ lives. She scoured records from The Register of the Outdoor Blind (a term used to describe those who were blind yet able bodied - derived from the fact that they did not need to be housed in an asylum), and cross referenced them with Parish records. Gradually she put flesh and bones back onto the names in the Register, lifting them off the page and into an Edinburgh far removed from the welfare systems of today.

One such character was John Richardson who, born in 1852 in the Borders town of Oxnam, lost his sight at the age of 14. With his father, a shepherd, and the Parish concerned that it might have to support John under the Poor Law, he was sent to the Blind Asylum in Edinburgh to train as a weaver. During his teenage years he was noted as having good character and by the time he was 30 was earning a decent wage as a mattress maker. However, drunkenness and absenteeism began to appear in his records. His wages were cut and eventually he was dismissed for stealing horsehair and selling it on to dealers.

By 1901, John was addicted to alcohol and found living in the noisy, overcrowded, Jubilee Lodging House with hundreds of other itinerant men. In Edinburgh’s Craigleith Poorhouse in 1914, he died a pauper, the very thing he had been sent away from home to avoid.

It was stories such as these that Victoria and the other volunteers uncovered and compiled into both popular podcasts and two books, ‘Feeling Our History’ and ‘Hearing Our History’.

RNIB Scotland’s Catriona Burness, who led the project, said that Victoria came into her own during the course of the research: “From personal experience Victoria knows the difficulties and challenges of living with sight loss.

“She blossomed while involved with the project and developed her self-confidence, speaking on behalf of all the research volunteers at our project launch.”  

Victoria says she found the work inspirational and, thanks to the research skills she developed, decided to take on a Postgraduate Diploma in Careers Guidance.

“It made me think very differently about history and gave me the confidence to take on further study. I was fascinated by how people’s disabilities influenced their life chances, especially in an era when such opportunities were so severely limited.”

To the National Lottery players who made the project possible, Victoria says: “[Buying a National Lottery ticket] is a great investment in people. I feel more confident and more able to go for things. It’s helped me to make friends, who I keep in touch with.”

She has recently fulfilled her ambition starting a full-time job with Skills Development Scotland.

BAM! Sistahood!, run by the Angelou Centre, saw Black, Asian, minority ethnic and refugee women across the North East take the lead in exploring life as part of an increasingly diverse community. They recovered lost and under-represented stories – from the involvement of Pakistani women in trade unions in the 1970s to the creation of Panah, a refuge for black women in Newcastle. The project focused on using digital tools, building skills and ensuring the women involved could become the custodians of their own heritage.

With many of the group facing challenges such as domestic and sexual violence, disability, mental health issues and socio-economic disadvantages, the support of the project and the other women involved was vital.

Ismat, Uma, Ruth and Kemi

“The BAM! Sistahood! project empowered me. To me it truly is a sisterhood.”

Ismat Ara arrived in the UK from Pakistan just a few years ago and joined the project in 2014. Being multi-lingual and with a background in teaching, she quickly became crucial in recruiting and supporting other women to fully participate. However it was her own experience that made her realise why getting involved was so important.

“I remember intimately what it felt like to be alone and without support and to have no family in a new country. That is why I enjoy supporting other women so much.”

Described as a beacon of joy and enthusiasm, Ismat regularly led activities and always had extra food to share! The mother of three is credited with having a radiant warmth that put other women at ease and encouraged them to share their stories.

Uma has been actively involved in the project for three years, overseeing its digital element. Her innovative ideas and skills in photography and henna art have seen her become a creative and integral part of the group.

As a lone parent on a low income, the project’s provision of childcare and travel expenses was crucial for Ruth Nyimba. Her talent for writing became clear very early on and she became the project’s Poet in Residence, helping other women to share their voices through poetry.

From taking professional portraits to documenting an inter-cultural cooking demonstration, Kemi played a huge part in ensuring women from a variety of backgrounds were represented. She became actively involved in advising the heritage and cultural sector on how to engage and work inclusively with black, minority ethnic and refugee women.

The sisterhood today

From Digital Photography to Volunteering and Leadership, Ismat, Uma, Ruth and Kemi all gained accreditation for the skills they developed as part of the project.

Ismat continues to promote the use of digital technologies in exploring heritage to women across the North East. Her role has had a lasting effect. She said: “I not only integrated myself as a BAMER woman in the wider community but I also try my best to encourage other women who were hesitant to share their stories and by supporting others I learned to respect other cultures and values.”

Uma was able to improve her English and her confidence to such a degree that she wrote and performed a powerful poem to nearly 300 people as part of a celebration event.

She said: “It was good learning new things, meeting people, working together. It’s helped me to get involved.”

Ruth said: “The project assisted me in rediscovering my love for poetry.” After performing her heritage poetry at the 2016 Women of the World conference in Bradford and at a spoken word event headlined by established artist Akala, Ruth’s talents are gaining the recognition they deserve. Today she is working with New Writing North to deliver writing workshops in schools and publish her own work.

For Kemi, involvement in the project gave her the self-esteem and inspiration needed to enrol in further education and she successfully secured her first job last year.

Thank you National Lottery players

Rosie Lewis, Deputy Director of the Angelou Centre, said: “The National Lottery provides vital funding for community organisations to not only survive but thrive, as well ensuring that we engage and involve some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. As seen in this project, National Lottery funding can generate further jobs and opportunities for all and greatly benefits society as a whole.

But then they joined with other local people in trying to make sense of the unpublished archive of a 1950s excavation at the site of Preston Hawe Manor, a medieval mansion at Tadworth in Surrey, the site of which had all but long since disappeared beneath a housing estate.

It was decided that the only way to resolve a number of unanswered questions from the archive was for the local community to carry out their own excavation, organised by the Raven Housing Trust and backed by professionals from Surrey County Council’s Archaeological Unit. Thus the Community Excavation project was born, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Taking part

Antoinette and Wayne were keen to take part. “It was a chance to learn more about the history of our area, “ she says and the pair of them soon found themselves re-bagging and cataloguing finds, sorting them by type and area found and re-ordering the archive which dated from the original excavation by local archaeologist Brian Hope-Taylor in 1952-4.

Both Antoinette (40) and Wayne (44) became fully involved. Antoinette uses a wheelchair but says that although the site was bumpy is was flat enough and access was not a problem. Both are delighted with the range of skills they acquired during the course of the project, made possible by National Lottery players.

Exciting excavation

“We learned about different styles of pots and medieval tiles and weighed and sorted them into their types, cross referencing the finds with the archive and the overall site plan,” says Wayne. They also got involved in laying and cutting a practice trench in the back garden of a fellow member of the community group. And they learned about excavation, supervision and geophysical surveying.

“The whole project was exciting but especially finding the south west corner of the chapel that matches up with the black and white photo from the Brian Hope-Taylor 50’s dig,” he says.

He adds: “It enhanced my skills, I got to engage with members of the public, and how to work as part of a team.”

Antoinette says she gained confidence, enjoyed working in a group and made some good friends. “And I learned how to make a short film about the project.

“Our group went to the Beacon School in Banstead and used their media suite, with the help of two media studies teachers.” 

A DVD of the project has now been produced and will be shown soon alongside a talk at a local venue.

Planning a future

The brother and sister team are now building on their new-found interest. They are hoping to form a Friends of Preston Hawe Manor and Chapel group, are still researching the site and looking for new funding to take the project forward.

Wayne has been volunteering at other nearby digs, such as one at Woking Palace, and is also in charge of maintaining the display cabinet of finds from Preston Hawe situated at nearby Tadworth Community Leisure Centre. He also looks after the interpretation board that has been installed on the Manor site.

“I've always wanted to be an engineer and have been interested in steam engines. I've been around steam engines my whole life,” says Hazel, 34, who grew up in Harrow Weald and now lives in Gloucester. “My dad has built a 5" gauge locomotive and holidays were always based around a steam railway. We'd also go to museums and heritage centres, which I loved.”

Her interest led her to a degree course in engineering design and appropriate technology at Warwick University. “I wasn't really aware at that time of any other options available such as an HND or an apprenticeship, so Uni seemed the only option,” she says. In a following gap year she also spent time at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum, now the London Museum of Steam and Water.

An exciting opportunity

Then she saw a stand advertising an apprenticeship with the BESTT while visiting the London Model Engineering Exhibition. “It seemed like an opportunity too good to miss.  I was unemployed at the time,” she says.

Hazel was accepted onto the scheme and placed at Hatch Heritage and Steam Engineers in Swindon, qualifying as a boilersmith.

“I love the heritage aspect,” she says. “I learned a lot and I also gained a lot in terms of self -confidence.”

Having successfully completed her apprenticeship and while on the lookout for other job opportunities she is currently volunteering at Gloucester Waterways Museum as head engineer looking after their steam-powered bucket dredger, the oldest vessel of its type in Europe which was restored a couple of years ago, also with the aid of an HLF grant.

A further ambition is to own a steam engine of her own. “I’d love to have an Advance steam roller or a 4/4.5” scale traction engine,” she admits.