Reminiscence

Age Friendly 2:

Amersham Museum had previously completed an Age Friendly project for older people, run at the museum. This involved a creative activity and utilised the skills of an artist. Following the success of this project we wished to continue reaching out to the older population and make it accessible to people unable to attend the museum, as we realise that there are older people isolated in their own homes. So, we developed an outreach project which had two components to it. One followed the same format as before to make a Memory Box but in a Care Home, and the second part was to collect peoples Life Stories and write them up. This project was known as Age Friendly 2 and commenced in January 2019 for 18 months duration. The project was overseen by a Steering Committee.

Reminiscence@Home

This was a project designed to reach out to people in their homes, who may have trouble getting out, and help them record their Life Story. Everyone has a story to tell and over 18 months we had the privilege to help some people record theirs.  We went out to various groups to tell them about the project as well as advertising in local publications and local associations. Trained volunteers then visited people in their homes over several sessions and they then wrote up the life story. Once this was final and all parties were happy with it, a printed copy was made for the person to keep, and if they agreed the Museum kept a copy as well.

Some of the stories are of local people but not all, however each of them tells of growing up in a different world, some very different from today. The overwhelming impression that they leave is how important it is that their stories are not forgotten, as we need to appreciate just how much life has changed and the challenges that previous generations had to face.

If you are keen to have your story told then please contact us at the museum and we will arrange for someone to call you to discuss this. Also if you would like to be involved in listening to people’s stories and help bring these stories to life then please contact us.

Click on the images or links below for their stories.

 

We have been able to fund this project with help from the following organisations:

• Paradigm
• W G Edwards
• Shanly
• Chiltern District Council
• Waitrose
• Barnet Waddingham
• McCarthy and Stone

Click on this link to view our Older People page

Make Your Own Memory Box

The project was carried out within the Care Homes and was known as Make Your Own Memory Box (MYOMB). It involves people making a Memory Box related to a theme that was special to them. To help with this activity an artist was engaged to give ideas and encouragement to help them create something that they could keep and show to their family and friends.

Three Care Homes were contacted about the prospect of being involved and all of these were keen to participate. It was planned to have  four sessions at each Care Home, the first of these would be run by the Museum Co-ordinator who would talk to the participants about the project and how it would run and at the subsequent three sessions she would be joined by the artist who would help all the residents complete their Memory Box.

The Care Home staff selected the people to be involved in the activity and a member of staff who was responsible for the project attended the sessions. There were four people per session which ran for 2 hours each time, but we did sometimes find that the residents tired easily, so we then saw two people at a time for an hour, and this worked better.

Initially people were hesitant with ideas as to what to create, but with conversation and encouragement everyone was able to come up with a topic. Our challenge sometimes lay in finding the right objects and documents for them to put into their box as people downsize when they enter a Care Home and so we had to be creative and think outside the box a bit more. However what became very clear is that the residents all enjoyed talking and  even if it was not necessarily related to the activity or their box, they enjoyed the stimulation of seeing other people and having the opportunity to chat.

Various boxes were created and included some of the following themes: World War 2, Millinery, Holidays, Square Dancing, Growing Up, Cricket

The feedback from the staff at the Care Home was all positive and it has helped us in building up working relationships with the Homes. Since completion of the project we have maintained visits with Reminiscence sessions run by a Volunteer.

Amersham Stories/1580

Amersham Stories/1710

Amersham Stories/1892

Amersham Stories/1939

Amersham Stories/1964

Amersham Stories/Collection/History

Amersham Stories/Links

The Mobile Museum