Tag: Heritage

Women’s History Birmingham

So many times when I interview people I hear ‘I’m not sure if this is of any interest but….’.  A lot of people, it seems, undervalue their contributions, or take for granted how important their experiences are for other people.  These tend to be the most interesting interviews.  They also mainly tend to be women.

Just as well then, that local historians Nikki Thorpe, Nicola Gauld and Sian Roberts created ‘Women’s History Birmingham‘ to promote and raise awareness of women’s history in Birmingham, and in particular women’s contributions to shaping the social, cultural and political landscape of Birmingham.  Subjects covered include the Women’s Liberation movement, policing, mental health, Fascist Spain, perceptions of single mothers, reproductive health, prostitution, sit-ins, and DIY culture to name just a handful of themes we’ve touched on!

The HLF funded project was inspired by a small pamphlet, ‘Birmingham Women: Past and Present‘, produced by Professor Catherine Hall for the Feminist Review journal in the early 1980s.  The pamphlet was the basis of a sponsored walk to raise funds for the journal, and featured information about key points of interest along the walk pertinent to prominent women in the city’s history.

Over three decades later, this work is now being developed further through collecting testimonies of women who lived and worked in Birmingham during the 1970s and 1980s.  These recorded memories are being added to online maps, to encourage people to undertake their own history walks.  You can view the maps, discover a whole host of stories, design your own heritage walk and contribute information by viewing the map on the Women’s History Birmingham website.  The edited films are also available to view over on my Vimeo page.

I have facilitated workshops at Perry Beeches II and Waverley School focused on teaching pupils key film making skills and oral history interview techniques, before giving pupils free rein to interview women for the project.  I have been completely taken aback by the maturity that pupils have shown for interviewees, and as a result, the honesty and frankness of those being interviewed.  The films, which I have been editing together, create an important archive, filling a huge gap in our understanding of how the ideas, actions and attitudes of women in the past shape the world around us today.

However, perhaps the greatest legacy of this project is in the changing attitudes of the young people involved in the project.  This quote from a pupils at Perry Beeches II perhaps sums up the impact best.

Thank you for sharing your stories and for making us aware and maybe helping us to see what we can do in the future.

For interviewees too, it has been a valued opportunity to reflect on their journeys and what sharing their experiences can mean to others.  Jasmine was very generous in sharing her memories:

The youngsters were keen to listen to my journey, through my life in education and work especially my work with children experiencing mental health problems. Their curiosity and questioning gave me the opportunity to reflect on my own life achievements, as a black women working in the health service.

The interview left me reflecting on my own life experiences and how important it is to share stories with the younger generation about some of my conflicts and challenges.

It left me hoping that the conversations with us may give them a model of overcoming some of their own challenges that they may come across in their female lives.

A few weeks ago we shared the project at the Women’s History Network Annual Conference and it was clear that there is a real appetite and enthusiasm for the project to develop further.  We will be developing ideas in the near future, but do get in touch with your thoughts and ideas if this has got you interested!

 

 

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40 years of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Birmingham Friends of the Earth​ are celebrating their 40th Anniversary this year. To help mark four decades of campaigns and action, I am working with local historian, Liz Palmer,​ on a Heritage Lottery Fund supported project.  It will involve working with activists, past and present, to explore memories and archives.

Back in April I attended the 40th Anniversary Party.  The fact that it was so well attended (see above!) really shows what an important role Birmingham Friends of the Earth, and The Warehouse, have played in people’s lives.  So much has been achieved, so many friendships formed and so much creative and committed work has been put into making positive and sustainable environmental change.

If you want to get involved with delving into archives or recording oral histories, there is an informal meet-up next Tuesday, 8th August at 6pm at The Warehouse on Allison Street. Or, if you would like to be kept in the loop with news and events, you can subscribe to the project newsletter for occasional updates.

Rachel

#keepswimmingmrb

Anyone who has read the blog for a while will know that I’ve spent a chunk of the past ten years championing Moseley Road Baths, a Grade II* listed Edwardian Swimming Pool in inner city Brum.  It’s a spectacular building, full of marble flooring, stained glass, original tilework, huge steel arches and wooden panelling.  It houses old ‘slipper baths’ for washing, which were used up until 2004 and closed during my brief stint working on Reception in the building.  It even has a steam heated drying rack, a remnant from its former days when the public laundry was a busy and important amenity for the local community.

But really those bits are incidental.  What really makes the space so alive and vital is the way it embraces the local community.  It’s not just somewhere to swim, it’s a real community hub.  Many swimmers have been coming for decades.

The Friends of Moseley Road Baths wanted to capture this, so asked me to make a film as part of their ongoing collaboration with the World Monuments Fund, since Moseley Road Baths was listed on their 2016 Watch List.  The resulting film was used to kickstart a month long social media campaign to show some love for the building before the scheduled closure in Summer 2017.

If you need that again, here’s the deal…

  • Share online through words or images why you want to swim at Moseley Road Baths
  • Use #keepswimmingmrb – and #moseleyroadbaths if you can too!
  • Share the posts that are being put up by the Friends of Moseley Road Baths and spread the love!
Moseley Yoga want to #keepswimmingmrb

To see the results, head over to the group’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages.  And don’t forget to contribute and share!

Rachel

Untold Stories: sharing stories across the generations

This blogpost also appears on the People’s Heritage Co-operative website.

As part of The People’s Heritage Co-operative’s HLF funded project, ‘Untold Stories: Birmingham’s Wounded Soldiers from WW1’, Year 8 pupils at Swanshurst School took part in a series of workshops with Rachel Gillies – Community Film Maker to learn how to conduct filmed oral history interviews.

The result of their hard work is 11 remarkable interviews with a range of people discussing their own experiences and the experiences of relatives in some of the major conflicts of the 20th Century.  From shelling in the trenches of The Somme to the shelling of Hartlepool, patrolling the Suez Canal to holding the line in Korea, back to the UK to the aftermath of conflict in people’s daily lives, including the reality of medical care, the interviews are eye-opening and frank.

Students took on a massive responsibility in helping interviewees share their often harrowing experiences.  Special thanks must go to staff at Swanshurst School and to former teacher, Doug Smith, who facilitated the project and who organises the school’s annual ‘Veteran’s Day’.  Thanks also to Veterans, School Staff and Lt Col. Steve Jeffery who were so forthcoming and generous in their interviews.

The quality of these interviews really does speak volumes about the maturity and sensitivity of pupils who were only born in the 21st Century.  They are ensuring the the lessons from previous generations are passed on.  And in a world that feels in a state of flux, what could be more important than that?

Rachel

Editing Untold Stories

Back in September I joined with colleagues from ‘The People’s Heritage Co-operative’ to share the findings from our project, ‘Untold Stories – Birmingham’s Wounded Soldiers from WW1’.  We launched a teaching resource and a film I had filmed and edited at Highbury Hall.  Ahead of sharing the oral history interviews from the project, here are some excerpts of a blog I wrote whilst editing the project film:

So here I’m sat at my desk, looking through scores of photos and hours of footage, wondering how I’m going to pull so much fantastic stuff together.  My job, you see, is to turn all of the lectures, interviews, workshops and explorations we have undertaken through our ‘Untold Stories’ project into a finished film for our launch on 13th September.

img_6975I have rich pickings here. Workshops where we delved into the archive to discover magazines produced by invalided soldiers, photos of injured servicemen following facial reconstructive surgery, lectures on the sheer scale of organisation required to ensure wounded soldiers were treated, genealogy workshops on tracing WW1 casualties, interviews with Korean war veterans, an interview with a serving Military Surgeon, explorations of Highbury Hall with a group of school pupils… it’s fair to say that we have been busy.

So perhaps for now I should just share some of my favourite snippets, and save the rest for the film.

img_7076My main involvement in the project has been working with pupils at Swanshurst School to teach them how to conduct Oral History interviews so that they are able to do their own interviews. Alongside former History Teacher, Doug Smith, and members of the People’s Heritage Co-operative, we ran a series of workshops to prepare the girls for interviewing war veterans during the school’s ‘Veterans Day’ event.

The stories that emerged over the course of Veterans’ Day really highlighted the variety of experiences. One gentleman spoke about his Grandfather being called up to serve at The Somme alongside his horse. Another interviewee highlighted a number of occasions when his father and comrades were injured in the trenches. Other interviewees spoke about more recent conflicts in WW2 and in the Korean War.

Whaimg_6965t was particularly striking was how much the pupils took away from the experience. Here are a few comments from pupils themselves:

‘You learn so much about where you live and what goes on that you feel responsible to continue this’.

‘I think that taking part in experiences like this can be even more informative than learning about it in lessons, because in this situation you’re learning more about actual people’s experiences’.

Of course I couldn’t share all of this without also sharing the project film itself!

Untold Stories: Birmingham’s Wounded Soldiers from WW1 from Rachel Gillies on Vimeo.

Rachel