DIGITAL:WORKS is celebrating receiving a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to help record people’s memories of entering the workforce in the 1940s/50s. They will then compare this to the present day and look at young peoples experiences of finding work.

Digital:works will be working with a group of volunteers from Poole and Parkstone and with Poole museum local history centre. Together we will investigate the difference in working practices from when people started work in the 1940/50s and compare this with the present day. We will explore the range of work on offer and the type of employment people have undertaken over the last sixty years and investigate how work patterns have changed from the 20th to the 21st century.

One of the volunteers, Rosemary, said; “Understanding our heritage, what makes us who we are, where we came from, why places are as they are, and how a community was created. It enables us to embrace the future with understanding.”

Another of the volunteers, Cliff, told us how the group plan to record people’s memories, saying: “The recollections do not have to be from this area, as we know people have had to move around the country during their working life. Personally I started my working life near Bath and only moved to Poole much later in life.”

Cliff, David, Joe, Katie and Rosemary help launch the project outside Poole Museum Local History centre.

Joe Stevens, digital:works worker, said: “This project aims to explore who we are, where we’ve come from and where we’re going – as individuals and as communities. It is a “big picture,” multigenerational education initiative that provides avenues for lifelong learning for all ages. It will promote greater communication not just between the generations but also between the established community and new immigrants to this part of the country.”

David Watkins, Services and Operations Manager at Poole Museum says; “I am excited by this local initiative and we are very keen to add a contemporary collection such as this to our archives.”

Nerys Watts, Head of Region for the Heritage Lottery Fund in the South West said: “This is a fantastic project which will enable local people in Poole and Parkstone to explore their past and discover how working practices have changed over the years.”

The groups finding will be displayed in Poole museum in April 2010.