WISEArchive is excited to announce that we have been awarded a grant by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to carry out our project Celebrating Wensum Lodge and its importance to Norwich and Norfolk 1807-2024. Wensum Lodge was an iconic part of the lives of many people in Norwich and beyond, providing much more than Adult Education courses but becoming a centre for the local community and a springboard for many to a new career. We are working in partnership with the local King Street community, Friends of Wensum Lodge, Dragon Hall (now home to the National Centre for Writing), the Norfolk Record Office and many more. Events will showcase the project, beginning with a two-day Exhibition at Dragon Hall in April 2025, and culminating in displays at the Norfolk Record Office. Many thanks to the lottery and its players for enabling us to undertake this work.
Our project with the RAF Air Defence Radar Museum at Neatishead has recorded over a dozen stories of people who worked there during the cold war and after, many of whom currently volunteer at the museum. Find the stories on Neatishead Radar Archives – WISEArchive.
One of our contributors has memories of the eminent Group Captain Joan Hopkins. Here is a link to a video about this remarkable woman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI36_iEtOS8)
In April 2024 WISEArchive published a booklet about Mutton’s Mill and Halvergate Marshes , as part of the Water, Mills and Marshes project.
Read interviews from 2018 with owners, Paul and David.
The booklet is available directly from WISEArchive, £6 including postage and packing. Please email [email protected] or Contact us to order your copy.
Water, Mills, Marshes.
Life and Work on the Broads
1920-2020.
Published October 2020
Almost 100 stories were recorded for this Heritage Lottery funded project, as part of the larger Water, Mills and Marshes project https://watermillsandmarshes.org.uk/.
There are tales of life and childhood on the marshes; stories of work and boating on the waterways; restoration of mills, and stories of the great variety of work and activities taking place on the marshes including conservation initiatives. It concludes with a glimpse into a possible future for the Broads.
The book is available from good bookshops and from Bittern Books https://bitternbooks.co.uk/product/water-mills-and-marshes/?bbaf=wise .
See the Water, Mills & Marshes archive and News.
Stories from people for whom crafts are a way of life.
Colman’s of Norwich: former employees
Working lives of former Colman employees
Under our Heritage Lottery Funded project – Recording the stories of former Colman employees we collected many interesting stories about this internationally known Norwich business – now owned by Unilever – the earliest being the tale of a young teenager who worked there in 1935. Our book entitled Colman’s of Norwich: Stories of Former Employees 1935-1995 is available from bookshops or direct from us, price £12, including postage.
Hear more about it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyspG242ufw
Stories from residents of Corton House, Norwich.
Stories from residents of Doughty’s Hospital, Norwich.
Schoolchildren from Magdalen Gates School and their families meet residents of Doughty’s Hospital, Norwich. Pictures from our project with pupils from Magdalen Gates Primary School, Norwich.
Stories from people who remember life at Gressenhall Beech House.
A variety of stories from people who worked for the Milk Marketing Board.
Working in the Health Services 1946-2003
This volume contains stories told to WISEArchive’s volunteers over the period 2008 to 2013 by men and women who worked in the UK health sector during the twentieth century. Some of them were already at work before the start of the NHS, some entered relatively late in their working lives. They adapted to changing times as working conditions, attitudes to patients, knowledge and expectations evolved over the decades. They were not averse to change and took the opportunities as they arose to change jobs and retrain as their careers developed. They accepted the long hours and more physical work required of them compared to today; they talk about poor food and rationing and describe some desperate living conditions, especially in the cities following the war.
Contact us to purchase a copy (£7 including p&p)
Stories from people living in the Mile Cross area of Norwich.
In 2006 WISEArchive collected stories from former employees of Jarrold of Norwich. The common theme is expressed by Tony when he says, ‘Politeness, civility and helpfulness was the main motto, and that’s how it was’.
The Cohen interviews. Early social work
Interviewer: Alan Cohen. Editors: Tim Cook and Harry Marsh. Transcriptions and collation by WISEArchive volunteers. Digitally hosted by the Modern Records Centre at University of Warwick.
This collection will be of interest to those concerned with the development of social work and the caring professions. The interviews are available in both audio and transcript form together with introductions, notes and a bibliography.
