Community Links Scotland
The Threads of Time Heritage Project
The Threads of Time…Stories of people, places and pride
For many, Clydebank is the place where world renowned industries flourished, traditional industries which included Textiles, Shipbuilding and Sewing Machine manufacturing. However, by the 1950’s the industrial base started to show decline.
The Threads of Time is a collaborative project between Community Links Scotland and our partners and groups established through the Clydebank Can Partnership. Our two- year funded project will focus on establishing a heritage programme aiming to provide -
A wider range of people will be involved in Heritage- By securing the funding and developing our Threads of Time Heritage Space we have started to deliver an inclusive programme of heritage activity with our partner organisations including Y Sort It, HSCP, Carers Centre, St Andrews Church Group and the Clydebank Asbestosis Group (CAG) and members of the wider community.
Work with Y Sort It
Y Sort It has been a group the project has been working with a lot recently attempting to engage young people in the history of Clydebank. The group has been learning all about the blitz and the ways in which Clydebank and its people have been involved.
This included a trip to the Carbeth huts where people stayed to escape from the chaos of the blitz, with the group getting a chance to learn all about the true stories of those who experienced the event. They found this trip particularly useful as it allowed them a greater sense of understanding for what it must have been like to be a person from Clydebank living during the blitz as they were actually emersed in the environment (the Carbeth huts) that played such a key role in the survivors stories.
People will have developed skills- We have incorporated training into our programme of activity including Oral History skills, digital participation skills, Textile printing and sewing skills all facilitated with professional training providers. Volunteers and individuals will gain new skills which will support the projects heritage activity after funding ends.
People will have greater wellbeing-The Threads of Time will increase opportunities for people who are lonely and isolated to become involved in our activity and meet new friends and have fun. We have consulted with a range of services many highlight the need for people with early onset dementia to have access to heritage activity including story-gathering, research has indicated that reminiscence sessions can help people with dementia.
The Threads of Time project will raise our profile both locally, nationally and internationally. The heritage activities we have planned are incredibly valuable to our community and will help people have a greater sense of identity, place and increased community spirit, pulling both young and older people together and encouraging learning. We want to see the benefits of our past heritage delivered on a large scale and we want people to feel a greater connection with their heritage.
A Community engagement/volunteering mentoring programme has been established to recruit and build capacity through volunteers whose role will be to share online resources including archived documents, photographs and stories using digital technology, to create a digital repository for the Threads of Time Project.
Our heritage coordinators Kay Clark and Lesley Anderson have been recruited and their roles will include the coordination and administration of the projects activity plan whilst providing additional support to learner /volunteers’ personal development.
Kay and Lesley, two of our fantastic heritage workers