My Yorkshire Stories

Sharing European Remembrance...

2008-11-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

Remembrance Day took on a special significance for me this year, having just returned from Italy where I and two colleagues took part in the kick-off meeting for an exciting new European project, called SEME (which means 'seed' in Italian, and also stands for Sharing European MEmories). As well as the UK and Italy, the project involves partners in Norway, Spain and Poland, and will see young people involved in collecting WWII veteran memories, which will then be shared across Europe in an effort to increase understanding of what war means to different cultures.

It was an emotional couple of days, because as well as listening to some quite harrowing accounts of wartime events in the different countries, we were taken to the Monte Sole National Park and Peace School in the northern Apennines. This beautiful mountain region has a tragic history, being the site of horrific civilian massacres carried out by the German SS in September and October 1944, as retribution for the actions of a group of local partisans. Our guide, 82 yr old Carlo Venturi, regularly takes groups of school children around the site, and when they hear that he was a member of the partisans at that time, aged just 17, the question they always ask is 'How many people did you kill?' Carlo's answer is always the same: 'I don't want to talk about killing. Now it's time to change'.

The park is also a heritage centre collecting the memories of many local people, such as Lidia Pirini, a young girl of 16 in 1944, who miraculously survived a firing squad attack at a hilltop cemetery, in which scores of women, children and elderly members of the community were killed. I can't begin to understand how she and Carlo, and countless others, have managed to cope with their memories all these years, and can do nothing but admire their courage.

And that's why, at 11.00am on 11 November this year, I will spend the two minutes silence thinking not only about our own servicemen and women, but also about all the people, like Carlo and Lidia, whose stories need to be told, and then shared across the nations. As the SEME project progresses we hope to include some of the stories collected in our region here on My Yorkshire. In the meantime, we have added a series of audio clips from the Two Minute Silence project, to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day.

Fashion frenzy

2008-06-23T10:36:00.000-07:00

Oh what to wear...? The age old dilemma!

I was faced with this particular quandry when attending the opening for the new My World My Things exhibition in Bradford. The resulting outfit, my husband informed me made me look like Lucinda from the Apprentice. Without the berret I added (note to self, buy berret at nearest available opporutnity...).

This exhibition (which runs until 31st August at Bradford 1 Gallery in case you are tempted by this blog entry to catch it) really makes the audeince think about what they wear and why they wear it. Is it for comfort, do your clothes say something about your age, gender or where you come from, which team you support, what your hobbies for, who you would like to be or are, how you feel or are they purely practical?

What's more, it delves into the intrigueing personal lives of five local young people. A film maker followed each one whilst they shopped for their perfect outfit. After a quick character assasination, Liz the exhibition Curator was able to match their personalities and outfits to pieces from the costume collections at the museum. I just loved the historic and vintage pieces that Liz chose.

We are delighted to be hosting some of the material from this innovative project on the My Yorkshire website.

Want to meet these captivating young people? Then have a sneak peak at the exhibition video installation on the My Yorkshire website.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then let us begin...

2008-06-02T05:54:00.000-07:00

Well this is the first post to the My Yorkshire Stories blog and it's like the apparently difficult first novel; you know there's a whole heap of potential but just where do we start?

Well who I am seems as good a place as any to start. It should really be 'who we are' because this is a team blog. It is going to be the collective ramblings of the My Yorkshire team; Vicky, Alison and myself, Kate.

My Yorkshire is a brand ‘digital storytelling’ website that has been taking shape over the last few months. So what I hear you say! Well it tells the often intriguing and entertaining stories of local villages, towns and cities and the communities that live in them. It gets right under the skin of Yorkshire and the Humber. The stories come straight from the horse's preverbial mouth and have been created by community groups in partnership with museums across the region.

My Yorkshire lets you be a historical voyeur into a window on people's lives and experiences. It holds an eclectic mix of stories from how Violet got her new teeth to Michael’s story of sleeping rough. Bite-size and hopefully leaving you wanting for more...

So the last few months seem a bit like a labour of love as we have worked together with our web designers Prego. I am very excited about the possibilities (which seem only to be bounded by the all too inconvenient constriants of time and money). I can't wait to get some more stories uploaded.

Anyway, I hope that's been a good intro and we will post again soon.

Kate