Your Heritage
Crystal Clear Creators promotes a love of writing, research and recording and develops up-and-coming writers.
This project focused on First World War archive material held by the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, including photographs, documents, local newspapers and oral histories. As the project progressed the focus widened to include the YMCA archives, research on city war memorials and family memories from the period.
Twenty adults investigated the impact of the First World War on the people of Leicester, each choosing a specific area to research. Stories included:
- Kulbir Thapa, a Gurkha who received the Victoria Cross
- conscientious objectors and the Friends’ (Quaker) Ambulance Units
- the Leicester suffragettes, who served in medical units in Serbia
- those commemorated on war memorials
The research was presented through exhibitions and accompanying boxes of artefacts for schools to borrow. In primary school workshops, children researched and interpreted source material and presented their findings in art work and performance pieces.