Working Lives of the Thames Gateway

Working Lives of the Thames Gateway is an exciting three year Heritage Lottery Funded project. In partnership with six east and south east London boroughs we have recorded the lives of those who made east and south east London a thriving industrial heartland.

Hundreds of oral histories plus photographs and memorabilia have been collected from former workers. These fascinating oral histories document people’s experiences in manufacturing, munitions, shipbuilding, food processing, chemical production, electrical engineering, printing, markets, textiles, and noxious trades.

We are celebrating their stories and the culmination of the project with a publication and an exhibition which will open at the Guildhall Gallery from 12 January 2011.

Reminiscence at Home

This exciting new project, funded by Wakefield and Tetley Trust, will expand on the work carried out as part of the ‘Reminiscence at Home’ project in Bow to record the memories of elderly members of the community who have lived and worked in Tower Hamlets. Working in association with the boroughs Ideas Stores and local residential care providers Gateway Housing, ten reminiscence sessions will be held, covering topics identified by participants as personally poignant and essential to the area’s history.

As well as working with established older people’s groups and clubs we hope to engage more isolated members of the community who do not currently have access to reminiscence projects and oral history work. The material gathered during these sessions, as well as the ensuing life history interviews, will be collected in a publication to celebrate the history of Tower Hamlets and those whose vital contributions have shaped the development of the area and London as a whole. We also hope to build on the intergenerational work already carried out in the area to provide four oral history workshops for local young people.

Disabled Young People’s Project

Eastside has been working with young disabled people from the AbPhab youth centre in Dagenham. The group has started to learn about film-making and photography as well as researching local archives and the history of disabled workers. Over the next 6 months they will work on different themes of their choice, document their research and the development of the project.

The film material and interviews collected at a recent trip to the Museum at Docklands has been edited into a short video which was screened before Christmas. Eastside will work with the group to produce a 10-15 minute film by the end of April 2010. The apprentice filmmakers will be able to showcase their work at the East London film festival and Canary Wharf film festival.

Ireland: What was that all about then?

The project is interviewing former members of the British Army who served in Northern Ireland and members of the British-based Troops Out Movement who campaigned in Britain against the deployment of the Army in Northern Ireland.

We are working with a group of young people from Tom Hood School in Waltham Forest, who will assist with the interviews and produce an exhibition and DVD which will be launched in Ulster in April 2010.

The Wapping Dispute

We are collecting and recording memories of the 1986 – 87 strike against the sacking of over 5,000 print workers by News International.

The strike was pivotal for both the printing industry and the British union movement.