Had a great day at Dawley Day today promoting the library service and the project. Spoke to a number of people who were really interested to hear about it and may have pictures and certainly have lots of memories that we can collect in the future. Thanks for inviting us Great Dawley Parish Council.

http://www.greatdawley.org/

Yesterday we had a good look through our own Telford Development Corporation boxes at the Community History Centre at Wellington. A tiny, tiny fraction of what is at the Archives, but thanks to all who helped today.  We found some interesting  promotional leaflets and articles in ‘Telford New Town News’ – a newspaper that the Corporation produced; maps that help to pin point places for people; and arts and leisure activities information.

Okay - so biccies were needed to keep us going!

Everyone engrossed in their search for interesting items to digitize

 

Yesterday we were at the Archives for our third visit looking at Brookside, Stirchley, and Woodside photos. Our willing volunteers found some really great stuff and even though we say ourselves – they really enjoyed themselves.

Over these 3 visits we have taken 18 people – 12 of whom have never visited an archive before. It feels really great to have introduced people to heritage in this way.
 

Getting ready for action!

Intriguing stuff

Terrific teamwork

 

Really excited to find photos people will be interested to see

 

We remember these areas

Our second visit to the Archives, today, saw 6 of us exploring the photo folders for Dawley, Hollinswood and Randlay. A mixture of photos from different periods; early 60’s-80’s. Some really interesting photographs - particularly of the Randlay Brick works, reclamation work in Dawley, Dark Lane, and some fantastic arty shots of the pools in the park. We were all really excited and wanted to show each other what we’d found! This bodes well for sharing our discoveries with general public in the future.

 

 

Thanks to the Madeley History Group for letting me attend their meeting to tell them about the project and for their suggestions of material to look out for. Such as – “we know that all streets on Sutton Hill began with an “S” and on Woodside with a “W” but there is no indication as to how individual street names were selected.” We’ll keep our eyes peeled when looking through material but in the meantime – if anyone reading this knows the answer – please do get in touch. They have  a great website.

http://www.madeleylocalhistory.org/

Yesterday saw our first trip to Shropshire Archives to start looking at the folders of the Telford Development Corporation (TDC) images. We concentrated on Malinslee, the Town Park and the Town Centre. Thanks to all our "fellow detectives" seen below.

It was a real pleasure to have some of the Telford Town Park Volunteers come along with us. They have a wealth of knowledge about the Park and it was brilliant to see them start to reminisce over some of the photos. Just what we hope people will do when they see some of the photos on the digital table at Southwater.
 

They are currently doing some research around the Chelsea Gardens so good that they were able to combine some of their own research. They have a fabulous website - not to be missed a video showing the Town Park from the air! http://www.friendsoftelfordtownpark.org/

Hot off the press! Our advert in the Senior Citizens Forum Newsletter for June is out today. The Newsletter is always full of interesting articles and seen by a large of people in the Borough. Here's hoping a few people may like to volunteer with us and enjoy discovering local heritage.


Senior Citizen's Newsletter June 2014
http://tandwseniors.org.uk/Forum/