With the fantastic news that the Heritage Lottery Fund have agreed to fund the oral history of the Lightermen project, we are hard at work getting it all underway.
Children from the two primary schools involved in this project, St George the Martry and Westminster Cathedral will soon be taking over updating this blog, but for now digital-works will do it.
So, we now have in place visits to the Museum of London, a trip on the river for both schools with an actor playing a lighterman from the 1920s, and then plenty of lightermen on hand to teach the children some skills and to talk to them about their own history. The boat trip will be preceded by a trip to Waterman's Hall which has been central to the trade for hundreds of years.
Age-Exchange will be running the Reminiscence Group to get lightermen together to discuss their history. The first session will be at Watermans Hall itself on Monday June 1st from 10.30am to 1pm. Subsequent sessions will be at Age-Exchange in Blackheath on Tuesday 9th and 16th June in the afternoons.
After their initial research and training the children will be writing poems and about the history of the Lightermen and also undertaking film and oral history training. They will then go on to interview Lightermen on camera.
Watch this space for more news as the project develops.
