County Show Excitement

7/8th September 2013 written by Jack Welch


Douglas and Sara with two of our
visiting interviewees.

The WITS team took to the road this weekend, as we accompany DYA trustee, Ray Seymour, to one of the biggest Dorset events of this year, the Dorset County Show. Volunteers Sara, Douglas and Alex were our trio on the Saturday and following that, Jack was our second trooper alongside Douglas. And you read that right - thanks to the generous donations from the Bovington Tank Museum, we were able to get into the spirit of our project by dressing up in the First World War tunics and hats we were given. Our objective for the course of these two exciting days was to now put the oral history skills we learnt at the Dorset History Centre and put them into practice - amongst members of the public.



Vicky (facing back) and Jack capturing
the wartime memories of one
participant.

We were all sadly aware that capturing memories of First World War stories would prove to be quite a challenge, as all current survivors from the 1914-18 period have now passed on, meaning that all evidence from we captured would be second-hand. And that wasn't all, as we also found that many older people were never told the stories from their relatives, due to the sensitive nature that some of the returning soldiers were reluctant to share their experiences with their families and were stories that would sadly disappear with them as they died.

But, thankfully, there were to be some successes to be had from approaching the visitors who passed by. We had a man who told us of the story when his grandfather volunteered for service when he was underage and many other fascinating tales including one from the Retreat from Mons, the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Jutland have now all be captured for preservation in oral history recordings. In total, we managed to save 15 narratives that will hopefully be archived soon after our volunteer Michael Taylor with support from Julia Moore.

Also, we managed to promote the success of DYA's big 70th birthday, as we also had a loud speaker where Ray could attract the visitors from the day.


Some of our team at the Dorset County Show, Ray Seymour front far right did a great job attracting people to our stand