Time Travelling in Chester-le-Street
Our new year has kicked off with an exciting new project in Chester-le-Street and has already unearthed some weird and wonderful stories. This latest project in our GeoSstories programme seeks to uncover and preserve the local stories that don’t always turn up in the history books and for Chester-le-Street, this includes lions, a sweet factory and a contentious football match!
Last week we held our first session with the Bullion Hall Junior Youth Club, who will be creating an animation about the history of their hometown. Writer Susan Mulholland, animator Laura Crow and our Project Manager, Alison Fisher, led this introductory session, which, instead of looking at the past, started by considering the present and the future.
“We wanted to capture their imaginations from the beginning, so we’ve created a story that they’ve found a time capsule from seventy years ago and inside is an invitation to add in their precious and favourite items. The idea is that their contributions will be discovered in another seventy years, when most of them will be in their 80s. It got them thinking about why it’s important to preserve artefacts and stories.”
“The children designed what they thought the time capsule would look like before deciding what items they’d like to preserve. As well as items we expected like phones and Xboxes, we had some unexpected answers, including skipping ropes, artist easels, and one suggestion to put in an annoying little brother...!”
- Susan Mulholland
“This was our first steps getting to know each other and making a project start - and wow was it fun! The young people are all buzzing with ideas for the time capsule already, and I'm so excited to see what they produce over the next few months as they get to grips with Chester-le-Street's history and digital animation.”
- Alison Fisher, Project Manager
Next the group will learn about digital drawing and animation with Laura as we start to introduce them to the stories and photographs we’ve discovered about the town’s past.
The youth club project forms part of a larger GeoStories funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and has already included workshops with adult users of Bullion Hall, with a weekly drop in session called Bullion Hall Remembers. These sessions have already generated plenty of material that we’ll use to inform the young peoples’ project and a community exhibition.
Huge thanks to the staff at Bullion Hall Community Centre for working with us on this project.