Work Write Live – Sharing Life Stories

School of Humanities – Patching Lodge

Developing mutual trust and understanding and the telling and capturing of inter-generational stories is at the heart of this project.

We are all compelled to tell stories. Imparting who we are, our experiences, and our take on life is at the very core of what it is to be human: it helps us to connect, to empathise, to belong. A project recounting autobiographical memories and sharing them with other members of our community therefore epitomises concepts of neighbourliness offering good communication opportunities, encouraging reciprocity between the university and the project partners, and engendering an improved mutual understanding of the individuals and groups involved in the project. IMG_4205 In the School of Humanities, students are encouraged to share their stories, real and imagined with peers and tutors but these connections often stop at the classroom door. Helping students to connect with their neighbours in the wider Brighton community is critical in terms of engaging them more broadly in the city and with socio/economic groups outside of their degree programme. Students in the humanities often find it difficult to make links between their studies and the employability agenda and this project seeks to address this issue whilst also enabling students to reflect on their responsibility as social, democratic citizens. Patching Lodge is a retirement village in Kemp Town where some of the members have been engaged in reminiscence workshops that allow them to share and sometimes write their autobiographical memories. This project is needed because some of the members find it difficult to physically write and so capturing their stories and presenting them to friends and family is potentially challenging. The members who are able to write are equally keen to share their stories and capture them in print format. QueenSpark Books are the most prolific community publishers in the UK and will act as consultants on the project, advising on the editing and production of a collaborative anthology that students and members of Patching Lodge will contribute to.

We hope this project will develop a sustainable partnership between the School of Humanities and Patching Lodge and that we will be able to extend features of the project to further community partnerships that draw on the positive concepts that CUPP and the On Our Doorsteps fund nurture and encourage.

This is a reciprocal project, bringing together students from the School of Humanities and octogenarians from a local retirement village. Sharing stories and identifying ways in which we are similar and how we differ and celebrating life is at the very heart of this project and what we consider neighbourliness, at its very best, to be.

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This project brings together residents of Patching Lodge (a retirement village on Kemp Town), students in the Faculty of Arts at The University of Brighton and QueenSpark Books (the UKs oldest community publishers). Students at the university rarely get to meet people above the age of 70 and this project identifies the power of sharing autobiographical stories to help intergenerational groups develop feelings of mutual respect, support and neighbourliness. The residents of Patching Lodge will be sharing their memories with our students who will be trained by QueenSpark in facilitating life history interviews and caring for the stories that are imparted. Having captured these stories, students will then adapt the raw material into creative pieces such as poetry, plays and short stories. In the first meeting with the elders we all shared storied and wrote poems together. There was lots of laughter and incredible stories accompanied by excellent tea and homemade biscuits – essential in any life history work.

A second meeting has now been held so the students could carry out life history interviews with the residents in order to inspire their creative work. They also read out their poems which were based on the introductory session. The results were incredible. Linda (the project partner) and I (Jess) were in tears after the first recital - the work was so sensitive, respectful, warm, human, uplifting. The residents were thrilled and the experience had clearly brought out the best in the student's writing. Patching Lodge were so pleased in fact that they have commissioned a trophy to be awarded to the student who produces the best work. Jess wrote ‘What a day! Had no idea that this project would be so transformative for all of us.’ - For more info, do e-mail her direct- J.S.Moriarty@brighton.ac.uk