Times Gone By

The Times Gone By group on a visit to a local church.
Credit: Times Gone By

Times Gone By is run by Banbury Museum part of Cherwell District Council. In the autumn of 2005, a trial of the ‘Times Gone By’ project was conducted with the aim of providing a focus for older museum users. The pilot took the form of three discussion groups to establish interest and form the basis of a future project involving oral history research.

We are now a well established museum group who meet monthly to undertake a variety of different reminiscence activities. Members are regularly asked what subjects they would like to explore, and along with local history items such as the canal, the market place and local industries, we have also covered social subjects like ‘housework’ and ‘how Sundays used to be’.

Group members have always made it known that they would like their memories recording, so two years ago we acquired some digital recording equipment, and we are now building an archive which has already been used by community groups, and for research by an artist working on a public art commission. We also have an annual summer visit to a place of particular interest, and we invite ‘experts’ on subjects associated with our local area, to come and discuss them with us. In 2007 we took part in an oral history project to produce a film of members memories aided by a professional film maker. We are now being asked to get involved with an intergeneration project, an area a few of the members have recently touched on.

The groups main passion is their home town of Banbury!

Contributions

Times Gone By encouraged their members to write diaries on August and September 12th. They reached out to many elderly members by accepting handwritten diaries that was later submitted centrally.