Age UK - Wartime

Throughout the beginning of the briefing for ‘dialogue ignites change’ there was three different projects and I knew straight away which title I was going to choose out of them and that was, ‘Age UK – Wartime.’ I chose this project because I thought it would be a very interesting area to explore, especially as I just love history and old photographs.

When I read the brief and found out that over the duration of this project I will be visiting people who have dementia at white hill resource centre, I was very nervous and worried about the whole thing. Then a couple of people from Educate called Mark Perry and a lovely women called Alice whom suffers from short term dementia came to talk to us about how she copes and deals with her problems. By this stage I was in tears as Alice’s story was so moving she really touched me, it was so emotional, but I also felt so proud of her. Alice is an amazing woman, I just wanted to give her a hug and tell her how wonderful she is. Hearing Alice’s story made me less nervous about going to white hill resource centre.

When I arrived there it was a lot less daunting as I thought it would be and I had a wonderful time meeting new people and making friends. I really enjoyed exploring the different experiences people shared during the wartime and I loved showing them my old photographs, sharing my knowledge of what my Granddad went through during the Second World War. My favourite part of going to the centre was playing dominoes with the lovely ladies that I was sat with.

I also went on a tour of Stockport with a lovely gentlemen as a guide called ........... it was really fascinating founding out different facts about places I never knew about for instance I found out there use to be a castle where Primark is in Stockport where the Roman governor of Britain, Agricola in 76 AD alludes to a station at this location as part of defences mamucium (Manchester) although its origins go much further back due to its  topography and strategic position overlooking the ford across the Mersey. 

Here is an image of a plan of what the castle may of looked like; 

   

I also found out lots of other interesting facts about other different places in Stockport, especially one building in particular I thought was rather fascinating and that is the plaza, as the plaza was a little late on the scenes as Stockport cinemas go but in 1932 it took a new level of scale and opulence to new heights in town. it was what was called at the time a super cinema and in the days during world war two there was a flurry opening these picture palaces and during this time the plaza was probably one of the largest cinemas going in Stockport being able to accommodate for 1870 patrons. The plaza not only features films but theatre as well as this has been carried out until today and one of the most fascinating facts I learnt about the plaza is that the very first acts to perform at the plaza were the comedy act of 'Laurel and Hardy'. Even today there fame goes on, I love them I think they are so funny and are great together. 

Here are some images of the plaza; 

There are so many interesting buildings in Stockport that I never about I really enjoyed the Tour of Stockport it really is a trip to remember especially if you love your history! The tour really helped with some of the research I have explored during my Age UK - wartime project. 

Going back to when I visited white hill resource centre I spoke to two lovely ladies called 'Olive' and 'Betty' I seem to of got more memories from 'Olive' and so I used her memories of her dad throughout the second world war to create and produce some compositions for my project. 

Olive told me a lot of interesting things about her past, especially how her dad was injured during the war and so he had to change his job by being the soldier head chef. She told me that when she was little she was frighted of the air-raid sirens and the gun her father would bring home when he was home on leave as he would walk home with his backpack on one shoulder and his rifle on the other and when he knocked on the front door five times to let his family know it was him, his wife demanded that he left his rifle at the door because the children were so scared of it.  

Olive also told me that her mum used to play the piano in pubs and when her dad came home on leave he would go to the pub his wife was playing in and he would take his soldiers Jacket off and tap dance on top of the tables. I like this memory of Olives I feel it creates a happy atmosphere throughout the bad times of WW2. 

Here are a couple of my final images I created on the amazing memories Olive has of her past; 

This first image goes with the Quote; 

'My dad would come home on leave and go to the pubs my mum used to play the piano in and he would tap dance on top of the tables....' 

The second image goes with this Quote; 

'I was so frightened.......when my dad came home my mum demanded he left his rifle at the front door because the children were really scared of it. '

Thank you for giving me this great opportunity to experience the wonderful knowledge of Stockport on the tour and to experience meeting lovely people with there fascinating memories of the past at the white hill resource centre, I really appreciate it. It has been a very enjoyable experience!