Background
The project was initiated by Frank Czucha, who was brought up in the Sands End area. He wanted to extend the work he has already done in setting up a website, Sands End Revisited, and organising a reunion of former residents. The website has been a valuable means of promoting community cohesion and shared memories, partly through a reunion of members which was arranged in early 2009.
The project aims to extend this further into the existing community, particularly by involving local children. Without it, the opportunity to engage both young and old with the history of their locality will be lost, and there will be no permanent resources deposited in the Archives or at the school. The project includes opportunities for children to learn new skills, and for adults to participate in something they would not normally be involved with. It will build on and greatly extend the existing achievement of the website.
Hammersmith and Fulham Archives does very little work with children and young people, and wishes to alter this situation in order to give wider access to its collections. The Archives does not normally host school visits and is keen to increase usage of their service by young people. There is also a need to record the changes taking place in Sands End. The Public Services Quality Group survey which is done every 18 months has highlighted that there is an imbalance in the service’s user profile, with far more older than younger users. Material from the Hammersmith and Fulham Archives collections will be used in this project, such as historic photographs. The ALHC owns most the photographs in its holdings, and in most cases the copyright also. We will also use items from the archive collections, some of which will be still be owned by the depositor; such usage will be managed according to accepted professional standards of security and preservation.
Langford School are keen to participate in the project because it offers pupils opportunities to learn about the history of their area and to have their say about it. It will enable them to work with older residents, and to involve their parents. Many of their parents are relative newcomers to Sands End, and are not aware of the history of the area. Pupils will learn new skills such as using historical sources. Tim Delves, KS2 teacher at Langford Primary School, wishes to take part in the project with Year 5 (changed to Year 6 ). He feels that the children will learn about the local area in a much more meaningful way if the Archives and the Urban Studies Centre contribute their expertise and if local people are also involved.
Hammersmith and Fulham Urban Studies Centre are an educational charity working with approximately 1,000 children per year. They carry out evaluations and consultations on a regular basis with their users and have been previously asked by Langford school to work with them on a heritage project.
Contributors to the website and residents of Elizabeth Barnes Court sheltered housing wish to take part in a project which will link the memories of older people from the area with young people’s current experiences. Elizabeth Barnes Court residents do not meet up with the children from Langford School as often as they used to, and have expressed a wish to have more opportunities to do so.
Originally a book about Sands End was considered as the main outcome, but it was decided that commercial publishers could be approached instead and that local people would benefit much more from a project in which their personal participation would really matter.