Jack Welch's column about the project in our local paper

DT1: Shocking stories from the past

12:00pm Wednesday 15th January 2014

by Jack Welch, a volunteer on the Walking In Their Shoes
project at Routes advice and information centre in Dorchester
The volunteers from the Heritage Lottery funded Walking In Their Shoes group have been exceptionally busy.
We have found some fascinating evidence from our research into Anglo-Saxon history in the area and also exploring the life of a soldier preparing to go into the trenches of the First World War.
Some facts have been quite shocking for us.
With the expertise of staff and volunteers from The Keep Museum in Dorchester and The Tank Museum in Bovington, we have gained the knowledge and insight we need to tell the soldier’s story on our walk. There has been an influx of young and older volunteers joining the project, as we enter our most exciting months ahead.
We have welcomed support from current Mayor of Dorchester, Councillor Stella Jones, and Dorchester Town Council Heritage Committee, which has called our project ‘fantastic’, as well as Waitrose of Poundbury – who gave us a generous £150 donation in recognition of our work.
More news came in the form of our digital literacy project, Routes IT Hubs, who awarded us the status of a ‘golden hub’, only one of three in the country.
If you’re interested in helping us make our interactive history walking in the shoes of an Anglo-Saxon monk and a First World War soldier, call Lorna on 07788203003. You can learn app development, history research skills and trek leading. It’s good for your CV and great fun.
Please visit http://walkingi ntheirshoes.blogspot.co.uk/ and follow us on Twitter @DorsetWitS

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Workshop in Wartime

23rd December 2013

By Jack Welch, Volunteer Press Officer

It was the final session of the year today, volunteer Sara, led a drama workshop on World War One making stories from facts and artefacts of the time to help us understand the experience of the people of Dorset back then. We thought that we'd let the pictures tell the story of our day, as we ended 2013 on a high. One of our volunteers remarked they "enjoyed getting stuck in aging paper, eating lots of chocolate, acting and being taught new information." Enjoy!:

A Military Routine

19th December 2013

By Jack Welch, Volunteer Press Officer

After Christmas celebrations on Tuesday, it was back to business as usual for today, as a number of the WITS team made a short walk up to the The Keep Museum, where its vast resources made this the perfect location to continue our investigations into Dorset soldier's experience of the First World War. The team split off into various tasks, in order to ensure we could gather enough evidence for the ten caches we are going to place around various locations on our interactive heritage trail of Walking in the Shoes of a First World War Dorset soldier's training for war.

Rosie, in her librarian role, compiles documents together.

Issy was delving into the works of T.E. Lawrence and his journey and listing Devon and Dorset regiments and the Dorset Yeomanry engagement in the war and researching 'telling facts' of a  Dorset soldier's personal experience. The team at the museum believe in the value of "bringing back to life' the soldiers of Dorset, by telling their story and we had the privilege of sharing in their research. They advised us by using real-life stories set in the correct political and social context of the war would have the most impact on the Dorset public.
 We were surprised to learn when a photograph revealed that our base, Routes: Young Persons Information and Advice Centre, 5 North Square, was once a recreational centre for soldiers who were based in the local area. How times have changed, with the building strikingly different compared to how it appears in the photo. Ashley had got himself stuck into his own specialist subject of the weapons of a soldier and recording a description from a retired sergeant major on how they would be trained to appropriately handle these dangerous objects.

The group getting busy with their assigned tasks

Rivan was on research duties, as he looked for additional stories and photo evidence on trench raids, and quizzed one of the Keep's volunteers on any findings about trenches and the experiences of crew members who operated tanks. Finally, Jack was capturing some new primary evidence, as he recorded the stories of curator, retired Captain Colin Parr and volunteer, Christopher Jary, about their own knowledge and family recollections of the time. Colin was even kind enough to don the hat of an officer, as he took Jack through the day in the life of  a new First World War recruit. The building of The Keep Military Museum was part of the barracks for the Devon and Dorset regiment and was a place that new recruits would have come to from all over Dorset.  Our morning there proved to be very constructive, with less tasks to complete now when the group returns to the museum after the New Year.

Alongside some of the treats we had leftover from Tuesday and hot drinks all round, we thanked the Keep for their time and expertise and terrific primary source research opportunities.

The group were very proud of their efforts.

Christmas Reunion

17th December 2013

By Jack Welch, Volunteer Press Officer

It's getting festive down at WITS central today, as we celebrated our countdown to Christmas and the fantastic achievements of our project so far while our volunteers feasted on an assortment of delicious treats, including chocolate cake, mince pies and the odd savoury snack once in a while! Today was perhaps all the more special though, for we saw the return of our hard-working student volunteers, as they make a brief return to Dorset to have a rest from their busy studies at their respective universities. We welcomed back Jenny, Jack and Issy to join in all the numerous activities we had in store for them and a special viewing of the sitcom, Blackadder Goes Forth.

Rosie and Liz read up on some of Hardy's melancholy work. 

First though, we had a bit of work to crack on with, when we had our resident Thomas Hardy poetry expert, Jasmine, a volunteer at the The Keep Museum, to investigate the context on some of Hardy's war poetry during the course WWI. Although the subject, and the poetry content itself, was less than festive in its spirit, the group were very intrigued to learn about how Hardy harboured a personal guilt about how he could only convey his frustration about the events through his writing. We are looking forward to investigating further the poetry written by Hardy and his contemporaries, as well as producing our own!

Thanks to our expert and volunteers who took part
in the activity. 

Once that task was completed, it was over to the back room as we enjoyed the remainder of our time watching Blackadder and his trials in the trenches. The snacks, unsurprisingly, went down a treat with the group and marking 2013 for WITS as a big success for everyone!

Stella Mayor of Dorchester is here :)

We had Stella Mayor of Dorchester, she said our project was "fantastic!"
We thanked her for the support the Dorchester Town Council Heritage Committee has given us

More WW1 research written by Sara Biggs

This is what the horses in the war would have looked like

A Dorset volunteer Sara Biggs, pictured here riding a Dorset Cobb, similar to those that would have been used in World War 1.

On Monday we spent the morning brainstorming how to tell the story of the Dorset World War 1 soldier for our Geocache trail and app. For this we are collecting lots of facts, information, and poems from different sources such as Bovington Tank Museum. We have been interviewing people about their family memories and have visited our partner Museums, reading and selecting poems and snippets of  diaries written by soldiers that trained in Dorset to be part of the Dorset and Devonshire Regiments or the newly formed Tank corps.

A WW1 soldier drawn by Sara Biggs

The Military Keep Museum Archive collect and store items, letters, poems and records by Dorset soldiers. Collin Parr, the currator at the Museum provided us with this poignant poem written by a young Soldier serving with the  9th Battalion the Devonshire Regiment:

'I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of thy sunset spill
Their flesh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword 
Must say good-bye to all of this; -
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord '

This poem was written by Lieutenant Noel Hodgson, MC aged 23.  He was on the battlefield in June 1916 preparing for the Battle of the Somme. It was believed that Noel wrote this poem 'Before Action' on 29th June, sadly he was killed in action on the 1st July 1916.Noel was responsible for keeping the men, his fellow soldiers, supplied with grenades during the attack- this would be especially important if they got into the German positions. Within an hour of the attack it is said that Lieutenant Hodgson was killed. He was aged only 23 and he would never get to see the sunset again.

After the devastation of this battle the British Army went back and developed their secret weapon, the tank. We learned more about this when we went to the Bovington Tank Museum the next day.....

The Big Annual Quiz

By Jack Welch

It was that time in the Dorset Youth Association (DYA) calendar to once more come together for our Annual General Meeting (AGM) and to look back on the successes/challenges the organisation has faced over the past 12 months - and to also officially mark our 70th birthday! At WITS, there was much to look forward to - not only had we secured a pot of funding, with thanks  largely due to the Heritage Lottery Fund and other kind supporters including DCC, Dorchester Town Council Heritage Committee, Dorset Older Dorset Older Peoples Partnership Program, Microsoft and Little Waitrose Poundbury, but that also we will be presenting our work in an exciting and lively game-show format in the style of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' to all the important guests including Mrs Jean Lang Deputy Lord-Lieutenant,Catriona Payne – High Sheriff, Cllr Stella Jones – Mayor of Dorchester, Cllr Ray Banham – Mayor of Weymouth and Portland, Cllr Pamela Dixon – Mayoress of Weymouth and Portland, Cllr John Wilson – Chairman of Dorset County Council, Cllr Spencer Flower – Leader of Dorset County Council, Cllr Su Hunt – Chair of North Dorset Council, Cllr Malcolm Birr – Leader of East Dorset Council, Nikki Hislop – NHS North Dorset, David King – UK Youth, Barry Williams – Ambition, Helen Horsley – Homestart West Dorset, Harry Susser – Space Youth Project, Ben Ling – Crossways Youth and Community Centre, Val Widger – Loders Youth Club, Martyn Mullender – Portland Rocks CIC



Jack (dressed for action!) located
at the WITS stand.

Alongside Rosie, Alex and Michael, Jack was also taking a bit of time out from his busy studies in Winchester and came back to celebrate this one off special event. Hosted at DYA HQ, both they and the WITS volunteers created the Twitter hash-tag of 'dyaAGM' in order to commemorate this milestone year by promoting our evening to the widespread number of followers who couldn't come. As the proceedings got underway, it was a great reason to celebrate DYA overcoming the various cutbacks they've faced and both the Chairman and Director announcing we were stronger than ever (not least because of our fantastic grant!)Once the official business of the AGM was over, it was now time to present to our audience the various questions about Walking in Their Shoes to reach £1 million.
With both Jack and Alex dressed in their army tunics, they were certainly dressed for the occasion and Rosie also helped us point to the options the guests had to raise their hands to answer the questions. Although the prizes were gold coins (chocolate ones, that is), some of our guests did need a bit of encouragement to answer! But besides any niggles in the evening, as our live tweeting didn't quite go to plan, it was an evening to remember as we ensured the message of our project reached wider audiences and we felt that's what matters most.