local history
Summary Update 1
Well it’s been a quieter month after the flurry of main activity on the Shared Place project – we have been finishing off the last few project pieces and will report back in a series of Summary Updates.
ARCH performers Update.
The group at ARCH have performed their monologue at two events…
The first being the PCT celebration evening at the Vauxhall Community Training and Enterprise Centre on 29th March. The event allowed 5 major community art projects to share their progress with the wider community and allowed South Liverpool to Perform in the North. The piece was well received by a busy venue and the group really enjoyed finally delivering their work.
The second performance took place on the 9th of May and was part of South Liverpools NHS Treatment Centre’s 1 Year Anniversary Celebrations. Below is the PCT press release about the event.
GARSTON PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE HELPS CELEBRATE THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF SOUTH LIVERPOOL NHS TREATMENT CENTRE
A special performance of Garston, Past, Present kicked off the celebrations for first anniversary of the South Liverpool NHS Treatment Centre in Garston.
Since the £13 million facility opened last year more than 160,000 patients have been through the doors to seek treatment and advice.
Gideon Ben-Tovim, Chair of Liverpool PCT said: “When we outlined our plans for a New Health Service for Liverpool we had a clear vision for delivering a wider range of services closer to people’s homes, making it easier and more convenient for patients to access them.
“We are delighted that this vision has been fully realised, and the South Liverpool NHS Treatment Centre has had such an impact on the local community and patients.”
The Treatment Centre is double the size of its predecessor, and provides a wide range of health services, including an NHS Walk-in Centre, drop-in sexual health services and a community café.
The special performance involved local residents, who recreated characters from the past and present of their community. It used a variety of creative writing and drama improvisations to bring to life the characters.
The piece was created as part of Culture Liverpool’s community arts engagement programme – ‘Four Corners’, which has been managed by JMU (John Moores University-Design Academy) and the Rotunda.
If you haven’t seen the performance then you can download and read the scripts here. Thanks Again to all of the participants at ARCH and everyone at Rotunda who did such a fine job in putting this all together!
Garston, Past, Present and Future!
“The group is really coming together with the piece Garston, Past, Present and Future! It has been great to see the journey that they have been on during the piece and its been great to see how their confidence and skills have really come on in leaps and bounds with this project. We are all looking forward to performing the piece and seeing the reaction of an audience.”
The group preview their piece at a PCT project Celebration event this Thursday at the Vauxhall Community Training and Enterprise Centre, Silvester Street, Liverpool, L5 8SE – between 6.00pm and 8.00pm.
Airport Art is Up!
We’ve just finished hanging the Parklands Airport Posters in the main arrivals lounge (opposite Subway) – they add a great amount of colour and detail to the space and we’re so happy to have them start our project’s live activity!
The works will hang indefinitely – until the area is redeveloped – so go and see them as soon as you can! They will soon be supported by the free stickers – obtainable from the main information counter!
Many thanks to Andrew Dutton and all at the Airport for their support.
‘Little Chicago’
This week we found a man amongst the Lee valley Ladies – Tony. He told us tales of his boyhood when he lived off of Hope Street and about the American GI’s who took up flats there after the war. They used to play baseball on some of the bombsites in the area and called them ‘Little Chicago’.
We’ve also found that some of the residents have come from far fields such as London and in one case Switzerland and there have been extra treats such as the first edition of the Liverpool Post, and a Land Army Mug.
Garston Past, Present and Future
This weeks report from Garston’s ARCH group…
Again the session was a fun filled one and they have all agreed to give up two extra full afternoons to develop the work on the Pop Up Monologues, and we have decided to give them the theme of Garston Past, Present and Future. We decided that it would be fun to also look at some potential people in the future to show the positive development of the community. We also decided that a narrator would link the whole piece together and we decided that within the health centre’s we would open the floor out to the audience to discuss people they have know from the past and present!
John
Tommy at the Woodies
Hot off the ARCH Garston Character project…
The group really brought in some really interesting new characters such as Tommy that used to collect glasses at the Woodies who used to get a 50p coin as a wage packet and they put a party on for him and he had a little difficulty in understanding that although the party was for him, that others could eat from the buffet! He stood by the buffet and said this is my party and then the landlady had the idea that she would call him and pretend that she was the queen and she ordered that everybody else was allowed to eat the buffet!
Spam!
Another fun afternoon was had with the Ladies at Lee Valley – this time Frank Carlyle joined us again and sat chatting with two of the groups oldest participants – Sally (90yrs) and Flo (94yrs) – where they recounted some of their wartime experiences. Frank kindly brought a collection of his works on DVD which he raffled off to raise funds for Alder Hey.
I spoke with a group who were all connected around the local Spam Factory that originally stood on the site of Morrisons Supermarket. We are really starting to gather some interesting material.
Thanks also to Joan, Olive, Madge, Hettie, Pauly and Heather.
Mr Coogan-could look at the sun and predict the time, was never wrong.
As usual the ARCH group were in great spirits as they discussed their character selections to work on… already with just a sketch of the character types, we should be in for some interesting pieces. Also welcome to new memeber Annie who joined the ranks this week!
ARCH- Character Discussion Notes
Mr Coogan- could look at the sun and predict the time, was never wrong.
Bernie Murray- The Woodies, dance with a bottle and a broom
Foggy- basket of pigeons on the back of his bike. ‘I’m going blind you know’
In Between The Bingo…
No Frank this week as he was poorly – but this didn’t stop the Ladies of Lee Valley from sharing their tales in between the bingo. I had the pleasure of sharing the histories of Joan, Betty, Winnie and Maureen.
We had tales from the war, school days, the hardships, careers and their first experiences of Belle Vale and moving into the Pre Fab houses there in the late 50′s. There was an amazing amount of crossover and realization that their lives had shared incidents and acquaintances.
Hopefully Frank will be back with us next week as we capture more tales and look out for some soundbites on the Buses soon.
Airport Poster Progress
Parklands pupils have started the designs for their Airport Bound tourism posters of South Liverpool.
A tour around the area capturing photos of some of the landmarks has provided the inspiration for their designs which they are interpreting as collaged stencils.
