Case Study - River tales

Programme: Your Heritage
Applicant: Age Concern Herefordshire and Worcestershire
Grant awarded: £43,000
Project length: 2 Years 4 Months

River tales - printable (PDF, 232KB)

Summary

Age Concern Herefordshire & Worcestershire’s ‘River tales’ project collected reminiscences from older people who had lived and worked along the four rivers of Herefordshire: the Wye, Lugg, Arrow and Frome.

Around 250 people were interviewed and their memories of
farming, flooding, leisure, mills, wildlife, accidents and folklore were captured. Many of the interviews were filmed and a DVD was put together of selected stories, including the memories of the oldest participant who recalls paddling in the Wye in the first decade of the 20th century.

The DVD was included in a learning resource for local schools and distributed to care homes, libraries, museums and heritage centres to help get people talking about their own memories of living by the rivers.

The aims of the project

To collect reminiscences of older people who lived along the four main rivers in Herefordshire to provide an insight into the social and economic changes that occurred throughout the 20th century
To pass on those stories to younger people and to encourage more people to share their stories through the production and distribution of a DVD

Benefits for heritage

The project has created a resource for understanding life in the 20th century in the county
The original recordings and transcriptions are held as a permanent record at Hereford Record Office. Without the project, these stories might eventually have been lost
Participants also recorded information about the natural and man-made environment of the county which would otherwise not be available

Benefits for people

Over 250 people shared their stories by taking part in 50 workshops throughout the county. 36 stories are on the DVD
The DVD is being used to stimulate reminiscence and discussion by a range of groups including the residents of local care homes and history societies
Children at three primary schools worked with a composer to develop sound tracks and illustrations to accompany the DVD. An education pack, including the DVD, was sent to 104 schools to support National Curriculum Key Stages 1, 2 and 3
geography, history and science
The project has enabled one generation to inform another and encouraged young people to see the older generation in a new light

Lessons learnt

Promotion opportunities are on-going and were much greater than envisaged, partly due to the success of the project; promotion work is time consuming and there should have been more allowance for it in the budget.
People who said they would do things such as organise reminiscence workshops or evaluate the resource didn't always follow through. Lots of additional work can be generated by volunteers not meeting your expectations and this should be factored into your project planning
Don’t underestimate the time needed to comply with funders' reporting requirements, particularly when you have more than one main funder

Long term benefits

All project material is publicly available at Hereford Record Office
The DVD is still being used by a range of organisations

The budget

Main Project Costs	£	Funding	£
Workshop facilitators	5,500	Other grants / cash from applicant	30,570
Design, writing, DVD, promotional materials	43,150	Non-cash contributions	1,920
Training / expert advice	4,760	HLF grant (56%)	43,000
Overheads, travel, volunteer labour, VAT	22,000
		Total costs	75,490

Reminiscing about the good life

Sector

Cultures and Memories

Activity

Participation; Learning