Day 6: Ukelele Sing-Along!

Day 6: 24/03/11

Venue: Lighthouse

In the morning younger people worked in small groups to create short films us an oral history that has been previously recorded and a selection of archive footage. Each group worked to edit some images to the recording considering whether to choose images that reflected or countered the oral history.

A marvellous Ukulele 1940’s Singalong followed this –a trio from AudioCraft led the sing-along and even brought along 10 Ukuleles for the participants to try – great fun! It also triggered some powerful and very moving memories that we recorded in two groups later. This was a brilliant end to the first stage of the workshops and everyone seems really inspired to continue.

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Day 5- Air Raid Shelter

Day 5: 18/03/11

Venue: Whitehawk Primary and Longhill School

The young people visited the air raid shelter in the grounds of Whitehawk Junior School, Brighton in the morning which helped them explore further what life was like for children during WW2. In the afternoon the older people and younger people worked together back at Longhill School sharing memories for the memory box. In a longer creative writing exercise/guided poem everyone wrote a piece related to air raid shelters – real all imagined memories. Some of the young people were brave enough to share their work and the older people felt they had really captured what it felt like even though they had never experienced it. The combination of visiting the shelter in the morning and hearing first hand accounts must have been a potent combination.

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Day 4 - Mass Observation Archive

Day 4: 10/03/11

Venue: Mass Ob Archive

Today the young people visited the Mass Observation Archive to research and collect/photograph/scan images from diaries and ephemera at the Archive. Special Collections Manager Fiona Courage introduced the archive to the young people and gave them guidance on researching strategies as well as how to handle the material, some of which was incredibly delicate. The young people were fascinated by the Archive and are keen to visit again.

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Day 3 - Archive Film

Day 3: 02/03/11

Venue: Lighthouse

The session began (just for the younger people) with a short introduction to video editing followed by a skype conversation with Mark from Corporation Pop – providing the opportunity for the young people to ask some questions. The young people arrived later than expected and most of the older people arrived early so the sykpe call involved everyone which was great and created an exciting beginning to the session.

Following on from last weeks’ interviews and audio recordings the aim of the session was to view and respond to the archive footage in small groups and make short video sequences using a short selected oral history recorded by the participants as a voiceover.

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