History Makers: volunteers needed

History Makers is a project that was part funded by the Longden, Ford and Rea Valley Local Joint Committee (LJC) in 2014.

Now fully established, the project aims to create a digital archive of interviews and memorabilia relating to World War I.  Young people are interviewing and filming older members of the community, recording family involvement in the War and looking at objects of interest.

We need adult volunteers to make the initial contact with potential interviewees, explaining to them the purpose of the project and preparing them for interview.  We are aiming to interview 50 people local to the geographical area of Longden, Ford and the Rea Valley, ie mainly Hanwood, Pontesbury and Minsterley.  All their contributions are important to the project, whether it results in a video interview or simply having their memorabilia photographed for the website.  No visit will be a waste of time.

We already have a good number of interested people on our database and more than 20 students from the Mary Webb School have volunteered to record and edit the material.   It has been a delight to discover stories about the Home Front as well as the Western Front from people living locally, which otherwise would have remained hidden.

David Fairclough, a Shropshire Council community enablement officer, said:

 ‘‘The ‘History Makers’ project is an exciting project based in the heart of Shropshire.  The idea is to bring multiple generations together with the aim of collating World War I memorabilia and stories from Shropshire people.  The LJC were delighted to support this and we hope the community can too.”

If you are interested in volunteering for the History Makers research please contact:

Yvonne Davies, Project Leader, ww1@marywebbschool.com,

leaving your name and contact details.  We will then arrange a time to brief you and answer any questions you may have.