TRANSITion: from fields to Ford and beyond

Taking the Floor at Ford: In Conversation with Debbie Bacon and Lolly Gresty, former employees at Ford Transit Assembly Plant, Southampton, 23 October 2017. [This event was part of the SO: To Speak Festival] “ I feel I’ve been very fortunate to have been brought up in a time when girls were allowed to do whatever they wanted basically.   Just tap on the right door and make sure they let you in. And not give up .” [Debbie] And she didn’t give up – not when she and her friends at school had to fight to be allowed to study technical drawing usually only offered to boys; not when Factories Act rules placed restrictions during her apprenticeship at Ford Dagenham; nor when she was faced with resentful male colleagues on becoming their supervisor. It was this resilience and determination that helped Debbie and other women like her to succeed in male-dominated workplaces in manufacturing and engineering. These stories were the focus of our discussion at the packed-out event...

FREE L A NCE BRIEF: Exhibition Design Consultant to provide training   The Heritage Lottery funded project Transition from fields to Ford and beyond is seeking a F reelance E xhibition D esign C onsultant to provide two sessions of training to a team of volunteer curators who se task is to support professionals in designing and curating a pop-up museum exploring the changing uses of the former Ford site in Swaythling , Southampton.   The temporary museum will be displayed in two cargo containers at the former Ford site in Swaythling , Southampton (subject to final agreement) . Content for the exhibition will be researched, collated and curated by the volunteer curation team with guidance from the professional steering team made up of a partnership of Now Heritage CIC, Cosmic Carrot and freelance oral historian Padmini Broomfield. The audio visual content will be produced by Cosmic Carrot.    The Design Consultant will deliver two 90...

We are seeking volunteers to help us create and deliver a pop-up museum launching in two cargo containers at a site in Swaythling in April 2018. The Curation Team will meet on Tuesdays, 1-3pm at Swaythling Neighbourhood Centre from Tuesday 31 October The Community Enterprise Team will meet on Thursdays, 4-6pm at the Round About cafe on Wide Lane, Swaythling from Thursday 2 November. Volunteers in the curation team will plan and deliver the museum by: Liaising with the exhibition design consultant to devise a plan for the museum researching the history of the site in local archives Transcribing recorded oral history interviews Listening to recorded interviews and selecting content for the museum Selecting and collating archive content for the museum Writing text panels and taking photos for film, website and print Running the museum over 7 days in Easter 2018 Volunteers in the community enterprise team will plan and deliver the museum by: Liaising with the stee...

Our final community coach trip of the summer was to Milestones Museum in Basingstoke. As before it was very popular and we had to get a bigger coach! Many of our regulars from previous trips to Watercress Line and National Motor Museum Beaulieu joined us again as we took a trip down memory lane.  Run by Hampshire Cultural Trust, Milestones Museum is a huge, cavernous immersive space, which houses under its cover a re-created Victorian streetscape complete with a working/serving pub and a hugely popular sweet shop, among other things.  Descending the stairs our group dispersed to try out the different displays and activities – exploring the shops, warehouses and businesses from a bygone era, checking out the Thornycrofts collection of vehicles, sharing reminiscences in the roomsets of past decades, or queuing up to stock up on favourite sweets or pints.  The museum is a great introduction to the industrial and economic history of the...

16 th August 2017: Our second community trip - a journey on a steam train on the Mid-Hants Railway’s Watercress Line – was as popular as before with a fully booked coach setting off from Mansbridge for Alresford. It was great to see many familiar faces who had been on the previous trip to Beaulieu. On arrival at the beautifully preserved Alresford station the group had some time free to explore the area, have picnics or have lunch and ice cream at the station’s buffet. Basking in the gorgeous sunshine on the pretty platform we were in time to see the earlier train getting ready to depart and, with a huge puff of smoke and whistle, it set off in its journey. We had a whole carriage for our group which was just special and to top it all, the Education Officer, Sheila, came round to hand out colouring and activity kits to the children and Memory Baskets for the adults. That would keep everybody busy for a while. The journey through the rolling hills of the Ha...