Well, we now have our earliest piece of archive material so far, film footage from 1984. Thankyou to the Andrew Roberts of the Survivors History Group, as it was through my contact with them that I discovered the film.
The film is a presentation made by Glasgow Link Club members at the 1984 MIND conference. The previous year Link members have gone to the conference and been shocked and angry to see that not one talk or workshop was given by a user. They made up their mind to change that.
The film is a really important part of the history of the User Movement at a UK, Scottish and Lothian level. Two of the people in the film went on to be founding members of Survivors Speak Out. It was Survivors Speak Out members who came up to early meetings in Edinburgh when the movement was getting started here. Through these early meetings Lothians' first user group was formed, Awareness, in 1989.
So I am really excited that we have a copy of this film in the archive. We're going to show a short clip at CAPS AGM on Thursday 7 November, so please come along and find out more about this fascinating piece of user movement history.
Other news is that the Living Memory Association, who sit on our Steering Group, have agreed to taster training sessions on Oral History interviewing techniques. This will be a fun way to get together with other folk and learn new skills. Please get in touch if you're interested.
I went to see Tynepark Multi Media Groups' drama "On the Road to Recovery" at a SAMH event in Musselburgh. It was really excellent and proved to me the power of drama to explore complex issues. I'm meeting with the Multi Media group next week to talk to them about the OMH project, so here's hoping they will get involved.
I have a few meetings with early activists coming up which is always interesting, really brings the whole archive to life for me.
Theatre Workshop are still keen to put on a community play around Mad Peoples History, so will keep you posted about that. The play they are putting on just now, Marat/Sade sounds great and I'm hoping to get together a group to go along. Get in touch if you fancy coming along.
We have two new members from the Patients Council who have joined the OMH Steering Group and we have someone from East Lothian and hopefully EUF joining soon.
I'm going on a trip with the Heritage Sub Group from the Royal Edinburgh Hospitals' Bi-Centenary project. We are going to the Lothian Health Services Archive to look at original copies of the "Morningside Mirror". This was a newspaper that was printed at the Royal Ed and is a really fascinating piece of social history.
Well that's a quick update on what's happening with the project. Please get in touch if you want to come along to Theatre Workshop's new play or if you'd like to find out more about the Oral History training. Cheers!
2 comments:
At the beginning of 1984 I and other ex-members of Hackney Mental Patients Union (1970s) were helping with an educational project on mental distress in old age. As a result of this, we were asked to facilitate a series of classes addressed by people with physical and communication disabilities. This was called "Everybody's Hackney" and it was running at about the time that the Glasgow Link Clubs group were addressing Mind. I think Tommie Ritchie (founder of SUMP the Scottish Union of Mental Patients) was working in a Hackney Public Toilet at this time. SUMP archives from the early 1970s are still preserved in Hackney.
Oor Mad History has demonstrated that a history that is centred on Lothian will need to take in the world - Canada, the Highlands, Sheffield and Hackney so far! Keep it up.
Andrew Roberts
http://studymore.org.uk/mpu.htm
At the beginning of 1984 I and other ex-members of Hackney Mental Patients Union (1970s) were helping with an educational project on mental distress in old age. As a result of this, we were asked to facilitate a series of classes addressed by people with physical and communication disabilities. This was called "Everybody's Hackney" and it was running at about the time that the Glasgow Link Clubs group were addressing Mind. I think Tommie Ritchie (founder of SUMP the Scottish Union of Mental Patients) was working in a Hackney Public Toilet at this time. SUMP archives from the early 1970s are still preserved in Hackney.
Oor Mad History has demonstrated that a history that is centred on Lothian will need to take in the world - Canada, the Highlands, Sheffield and Hackney so far! Keep it up.
Post a Comment