A Happy and Glorious Way to Celebrate Jubilee
A South Tyneside voluntary organisation that helps to reduce loneliness and isolation for the elderly is celebrating the Jubilee by taking people back in time with the publication of a new book of treasured memories and historical photographs.
Happy at Home South Tyneside is a voluntary organisation and part of the Churches Together in South Tyneside charity. Their volunteers make regular visits (usually weekly) to lonely, isolated people and share a chat, listen to music together, share a past time or simply reminisce.
With the help of historian and photographer Paul Perry and funding from Art Council England’s Let’s Create Jubilee Fund, Happy at Home South Tyneside have published the book “Happy and Glorious.” The book shares memories of how different life was for local people in the 1950’s and covers a whole host of topics including the difficult post war period, school life, and leisure activities.
Miriam Reay from Happy at Home said: “This project has been fabulous. We’ve involved many of our members and enjoyed hearing their tales of life back in the day. It was fascinating to learn about life before mobile phones, computers, and the internet. Things seemed to be so much simpler then.
“Reminiscing is good for our mental health, it helps us to escape the humdrum of everyday life and forget our worries, even if it’s for just a short time. It also helps to reduce stress and improves the quality of life of our members. We wanted the book to take people back to a different time and relive fond memories and share their experiences with others and it has certainly done that.”
The charity has published 300 copies of the book which will be given away free to everyone connected with the project, however if the demand is there, there will be more books made available for a small donation to the charity.
To coincide with the book and to further celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the charity is organising two events supported by the Art Council England’s Let’s Create Jubilee Fund.
On the 14th and 24th June, there will be fifties themed afternoon tea parties with members, volunteers, staff, and civic dignitaries attending. Everyone is encouraged to dress up in costumes from the 1950’s, with entertainment being provided by singer Deborah Taylor-Smith, also known as ‘Wor Vera’.
“The books and the launch events were funded by Arts Council England’s – Let’s create Jubilee Fund and distributed by the Community Foundation Tyne and Wear and Northumberland. We are very grateful to everyone involved in the project and especially to photographer and local historian Paul Perry for his help collating material for the book, “said Miriam.
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Photo shows The Mayor of South Tyneside Councillor Pat Hay with volunteers from Happy at Home. (STMBC Happy at Home)
www.happyathomesouthtyneside.co.uk
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