‘Living Stories’
Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund
Saturday June 16th 2007 was the day of the ‘story-so-far’ exhibition at the James Gillespie’s High School Library. Former pupils from all over the UK came to visit the School again and revive memories of their old School days. Over 200 people visited the exhibition, where they were able to see interpretation stands with quotes and pictures from most of the living memory history of the School and historical information dating back to before the First World War.
‘Living Stories’ is an oral history project supported by a grant from the Heritage
Lottery Fund and it completes in November 2008. It was designed to help the School keep in touch with its Former Pupils and members of the local community and to record their memories for posterity, in the start of an oral history library to be established at the School.
Archive documents, the old School registers, some of which are over 100 years old, were on display, alongside many precious items of memorabilia. Visitors to the exhibition also brought donations, or items for the School to copy. It is hoped that the archive will be restored over time and all the gaps in the history will be filled.
There were disc players on hand for visitors to listen to the recordings so far and many could remember those who were interviewed from their own school days.
Visitors were encouraged to take part by adding their memories to the project. Comments about their own experiences, both good and bad were noted and will be published as part of the final presentations next year. The exhibition was intended to show what has been achieved and to encourage further involvement.
There were 6 viewings of the film throughout the day, made by current pupils about the project and included film of the oral history interviews from some former pupils who could recall the days of Muriel Spark (formerly Camberg) and Miss Kay on whom the character Miss Jean Brodie was modelled, alongside other important and memorable members of the staff and School community, over the past 80 years of their living memories.
The displays also brought visitors up-to-date with what the School does now and the recent achievements in their Africa support programme, the DiverseCity project and other activities.
The project is still very much alive and we want people to keep in touch with us and record more memories and take part in any way you like. We need volunteers to help with the archive indexing and more memorabilia to help fill the gaps.
If you are interested please contact the Volunteer Development Officer and let us know what you would like to do!
