Away from the Textbooks...

After a short, but by no means insurmountable, readjustment in Dorset, I was all too excited to make my long-awaited return to Dorchester and the Dorset Young Remembers (see December's post "'Hear ye! Hear ye' Interviews and More" for details of the goals of the project) after what seems to be a long, overdue reprise to the project I, alongside Project Worker Lorna Johnson, initiated since August-September last year. You can watch here my plea to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for the successful grant that made the project what it is today (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOhfvIVMT8A). Indeed, after a segment on the BBC with John Craven, 15 extensive visits to youth clubs across the county and with more members than the recruitment drive anticipated I am issued with the task of...transcribing?!

From left: Anna Maycock, Jean Coulter and Mary Shaw.

But more on that later, first we had a special visit from a well-sought after volunteer from the days when everything seemed so much simpler. Jean Slade (or Mrs. Coulter to her present marital status) incidentally had the fortune as Dorset Youth Association's (DYA) press officer around 1960-65 had the common habit of her own press releases (about herself) and, utter shock, local newspapers printed stories about her! I was uncertain at the time whether it was pure 'churnalism', with journalists merely rehashing each other's stories, or a masterstroke of luck that over fifty years later these very press clippings would be found - alongside that identifiable pattern of one person cropping up time and time again from adventures to Cold War Czechoslovakia and Poland and all around the world and back. Accompanied by her one time friend, Mary Shaw, we were able to celebrate these one time winners of the prestigious Duke of Edinburgh Award. Admittedly, on my part anyway, I have never once been tempted to participate in the award and its long, arduous activities must admittedly be only for those of a physically 'able' disposition. The Award itself seems to consist of long treks, less than satisfactory camping arrangements and working with some of the most dangerous environments, it is in turn rewarded by explorations abroad of the UK and greetings with the Duke himself when accomplishing its highest Gold award. This may depend upon the opinions if you admire the monarchy or not. We were finally joined by the present day recipient of the award, Anna Maycock, who by coincidence works in the same offices of our project. It was a great inter-generational cross all round. This interview produced many surprising observations such as "why not" as an excuse to actually volunteer on the project and Sir John Hunt, one of the first British mountaineers to climb Everest, making cups of coffee for tired young adults in Eastern Europe who had to get up at 5.30am in the morning. It was very enlightening and it seems a shame to think nowadays that for young people "why not" has become "why should I" and the government having to plead with businesses to hire 'surly' young people because they are too unwilling to start with. If not being part of the DofE for its physical demands alone, at least it sharpened young people for the rest of their lives. Here, I digress. It was an interesting day when our special guest, Mrs. Coulter, admitted that in her time the studies she took at school were not enough to fund the payments of Higher Education and she left at fifteen to eventually come to DYA to work there. How different life would be if young people then could inherit the same opportunities we have today and the best that all can be done about it is to whinge and throw our dummies out when the government does something we disagree with. Joined by a young, hapless Wessex FM work experience student who had 'technical difficulties' and a bossy Dorset Echo photographer, we had a great afternoon of tea, cakes and talk of P&O cruises.


After a successful visit to the Dorset County Museum (my first after coming home from university) of presenting our DofE poster for the creative directors to sink their teeth into buzzing ideas of how each different part of the exhibit should be presented, it was on to the much more menial tasks of the week and to interpret the audio of recorded interviews onto a word processor. Although there may not be a story entirely apparent from this activity, it just seems to be an activity that has to be done and, as this will enter the local archives long after the conclusion of this project, a PhD student may just dig out our dust-filled boxes 20 years time on the subject of...'What activities engaged young people of Dorset most in a time of high unemployment'? It would be a pleasure to see our project referenced academically, as I'm doing so now with much of my work. It keeps the brain ticking.


For more information of Dorset Young Remmebrs, please visit: http://dorsetyoungremembers.blogspot.co.uk/ where you will also find my recent post on our visit from the three DofE winners in Dorset.


Also, here is the programme broadcasted in February on BBC Two, presented by John Craven, on a small (and somewhat underwhelming) overview of our project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr7CUuCYEkQ&feature=channel&list=UL


Soon...
Saving the local library.