Originally, we intended to take the school children to visit the Bury St Edmunds Record Office but, of course, that isn’t possible right now. So we were thrilled when Hannah Salisbury, the Community and Learning Officer (West Suffolk) from Suffolk Archives, offered to do an online presentation. It was fascinating; did you know that there […]
Abbots Green Academy
Acting your Age and enjoying jigsaws
Special Delivery began with some jigsaws, as the children pieced together copies of the Dunkirk Letters. After this, the children created postcard self-portraits, cut them up into jigsaws and, using handmade envelopes, posted the puzzles to members of the Bury St Edmunds Theatre Royal Act Your Age group. The group was thrilled to receive them […]
It’s the little things that matter
Here are some of the cards created by the children, to celebrate the little things in life that matter so much.
Something softer than soil
We’ve been thinking about ‘little things’ – as in the little things the soldiers wrote about in their letters home from Dunkirk – and also the things they asked for, like shaving soap and writing paper. Exploring the letters like this, looking for clues about what it was like, really brings the letters – and […]
Acting our age
Members of the Bury St Edmunds Theatre Royal Act Your Age group have been hard at work, creating characters based on the Dunkirk Letters – and I got to sit in on a Zoom session and hear them performing the monologues. It was amazing – people who were barely mentioned in the actual letters suddenly […]
Cold tea and poetry
They’ve arrived. The children received their letters, which they read before the session, as there was so much to get through, we weren’t sure we’d fit it all in. First, it was finishing off the envelopes, after which children had to snip up the postcard pictures they’d drawn of themselves and put them inside. To […]
Self portraits and favourite colours
Last week, we asked the children to draw a self-portrait on a postcard, and to add a few lines about themselves. The results are so lovely, we thought we’d share them here, ahead of tomorrow’s session … when who knows what might happen to them? The featured image is of our wonderful volunteer, Amanda who, […]
Special Delivery to Abbots Green Academy
What a joy to start our brand new intergenerational project, Special Delivery, yesterday, and to meet the children from Abbots Green Academy in Bury St Edmunds. Their reasons for wanting to take part in the project were many and varied, from a desire to work with artists to a keen interest in local history and […]