"In Living Memory"

 On Sunday 7th June I visited my 92 year old Mum, seeing her for the first time since her birthday at the end of January because of Covid19. I sat - socially distanced - with her and my sister, who lives with her, in the garden she planted in 1949 and in which I grew up.

 The subject of "in living memory" has been much discussed in our family during the current crisis. It is a phrase much used by politicians and journalists - "never in living memory....". Our family comment is that generally it means, not in the memory of the average octagenerian. Our mother is 92. She and my brother are history graduates. She went to St Andrews University at 16 during the WW2. My sister is a genealogist. My mother's memory - her whole brain - is exceptionally good. Her mind is actually sharpened by this crisis as public health is one of her subjects. Politicians and journalists underestimate what she is able to tell us about living through crises.

 We do long generations in my family.  My grandfather was born in 1879, was abused, ran away to sea and fought off pirates with a meat cleaver. At the start of the NHS he was found to have lost a lung, unknowingly, 40 years before, probably up the Amazon. On that Sunday, conversation led to family friends and differing attitudes to the education of girls through three generations until my own.  My Mum’s parents were uneducated but determined she would be. They ran a boarding house in Broughty Ferry and people stopped them in the street to ask why they wasted their money on educating their girls. Meanwhile, #blacklives matter provokes us all to consider our attitudes to others and where they come from.

With all this in my mind but no idea at all of where it might lead, I provoked 4 threads of commentary on Facebook.   My prompts had the aim of encouraging people to think about how their own attitudes, feelings, behaviours, mental health, life choices have been affected by late 19thc/early 20thc realities.  

 20  people have engaged: 

They include 5 men, a wide age spread, representation of the LGBT community. So far there is no significant BAME representation (there is one mixed race person). In terms of the experiences referred to, the reach has included Isle of Lewis, Germany, Palestine, New Zealand, Alsace-Lorraine, Brittany, London, Dundee, Hampshire, Egypt, India, Belfast, Zimbabwe, Canada, Merseyside, Murmansk, Holland, Norfolk, Thames, St Andrews, as well as across Scotland.

 The 3 threads were:

 1. Which generation of your family was of working/fighting age in 1914-18?

 2. What do you know about equalities or education in the late 19th/early 20th c ?

 3. Would you say your own self/life has been touched by the themes we have identified:

 A.    Gender/sexuality/reproductive rights/sexual freedom

B.    voice/status

C.   education/career

D.   geography/nationality/empire

E.    health care

F.    childcare/transition to adulthood.

G war/refugees

4. "What happens next".

   Reading people's comments there were some particular physical images that jumped out to me:

 ·        Gold watch

·        sex, car, supermarket, eggs

·        sea, RAF

·        land (Scottish)

·        sewing box, long heavy black skirt, 

·        gardening, football (Dundee FC)

·        coal

·        The Troubles, PG Tips, butter/margarine, automatic washing machine, 

·        Holocaust, wild flowers

·        fabric, ankles, 

·        huge dray horses that pulled the cannons, gas (mustard)

·        swimming, driving, post office, island

·        amunitions

·        books, prison, Oscar Wilde

·        soldiers walking past each other

·        boatload of refugees

·        penny, antibiotics

·        petticoat, legs, shoes, big boobs, bike, period (menstrual), building site, 

·        hairdresser, 

·        large families, lighterman on the Thames

·        blacksmith, amputee, farmer

·        songs, poetry, 

·        horse and cart, theatre

·        producing sons

·        Action man and Barbie

·        Blowing up a train

·        Foraging and scavenging

A multimedia project may be emerging - visual, including participants words, 3D - and I have several people interested in collaborating.

You can find out more about what I do at www.waythroughart.com and some of you may be interested in taking part in some way - including by sharing your own answers to my questions above or in any other way. I am open to ideas.

Thank you for your attention.