PRIMARY school children have embarked on an exciting local history project and are appealing for people to come forward with photographs and anecdotes.
Year six pupils at Montalbo School, in Barnard Castle, have only been back in the classroom for two weeks but already they are hard at work on a new project to chart the history of the town’s annual Whit weekend celebrations.
Headteacher Christopher Minikin, who is also a keen local historian and a passionate supporter of the annual Meet celebration, came up with the idea of creating the book, which will be a mixture of history and community memories.
The school has a keen eye on local history and last term children from all classes helped to produce a series of five books about some of Teesdale’s most iconic buildings. The print may not be dry on the last project but children are already keen to get stuck into the new one.
Mr Minikin said: “The children have started at the research already. They’ve been looking at local history books and have been online looking through the Teesdale Mercury archives to get them started.”
The children will also be engaging with the community and there are already trips planned to Bowes Lyon House, in Barnard Castle, where they will be talking to residents about their memories of the Meet.
They will be making a special visit to the Fitzhugh Library, in Middleton-in-Teesdale, to have a look through its archives.
The children are hoping people will also come forward with photographs and stories of the Meet.
Mr Minikin added: “It would be great to be able to include photographs from the Meet to show how it has changed. And stories – we’ve all got stories about different years.”
Mr Minikin remembers entering the parade himself as a child on many occasions, but especially in 1982 when he dressed as a clown.
He said: “It was one of the hottest years and I’d broken my arm the week before so it was worse as I had a full cast on as well as the costume.”
Mr Minikin said photographs can be brought to the school, where they will be copied and given back, or if they are digital, emailed to montalbo@durhamlearning.
net. If anyone has interesting stories they can also email them in.
He said: “We hopefully they will be able to do all the research this term and then we can put it together into a book, which will be put on sale at the Meet and all the money raised will go to the Meet committee.”
