Bridgend
Reminicence Group
5th
March 2010:
The Bridgend
Reminiscence Group has been developing from strength to strength
and Helen Mein and Paddy MacArthur have been conducting interviews
with many people around the village of Bridgend and have been
paying especial consideration to those with memories of the
village of Kingscavil, which was once a thriving shale village
before it was demolished in 1937.
13th
October 2009:
The Bridgend
Reminiscence Group (Paddy, Helen and Anne), is finalising
their oral history and archival training and over the next
few weeks will begin to undertake their first oral history
interviews. The interviews will dovetail with recent archival
research at the West Lothian History HQ in Blackburn and the
West Lothian Archives in Deans. This research will complement
research at the Shale Oil Museum and will form the foundation
of a community based exhibition over the next few months.
The BRG is looking not only at the development of Bridgend
but also of the recollections and memories of those who lived
in Kingscavil and the areas surrounding Bridgend.
27th
September 2009:
The
village of Bridgend has a rich heritage of involvement not
only with the Shale Oil industry, but as a village which is
able to take a step forward and develop from the remnants
of the shale industry. The recently developed Bridgend Golf
Club and the football team, are just some of the ways in which
the village is building upon its Shale Oil heritage, and with
the case of the golf course, quite literally building upon
the ground of the shale legacy.
The BRG
is currently at the training stage and undertaking research
via the Shale Oil Museum and at the Blackburn History HQ,
further research is also anticipated at the West Lothian Archive
depot in Deans.
The scope
of the group is not only to conduct a series of oral histories
with the long term residents of Bridgend, which also includes
people who moved across from Kingscavil when it was abandoned
in 1947. But in the wider scope of the research to understand
as much of the archival records of the local history as is
possible, the analysis of the records will inform a project
plan which will feed historical and heritage knowledge back
into the village community. |
