Together with local people, stories were gathered and recorded in workshops, events and through informal conversations – a child’s tale of a factory in Gdańsk; a nightshift in a coal mine in East Durham; dancing in a social club in Zagreb and more. We worked with organised groups in specific community centres and also recorded people’s stories through chance encounters. Using a map to pinpoint individual accounts we built up an archive of site-specific memories and experiences.

In Blackhall we started our mapping workshops in the Community Centre Café in which over a cup of tea we listened and recorded people talking about life in Blackhall. The next day we moved to the local library and later to the main shopping street. The mapping workshops became a meeting point, a place where stories were exchanged and re-told. Jan remembered collecting sea coal with her father; Helen recalled the shop that sold the best ice cream; and Ben told us how he and his friends used to stop on the corner for a beer after their night shift. The map together with the recordings of these memories formed a multi-layered mosaic – a collective informal history of Blackhall.

Mapping workshops

The Voiceover recording unit in the streets

One of the aims of the Voiceover project was to share these local stories with the different communities we visited. In Blackhall we decided to do this by adapting the material within the familiar format of a bingo game. We prepared a series of numbered, themed cards containing all the stories and images we had gathered in Gdańsk, Zagreb, Blyth and Blackhall. These cards were spread out on the tables and when a specific number was called the card was found and someone from that table read out the story. The stories from the different locations were then grouped and displayed by theme: home, work, love, childhood, water, food, play and so on. Participants seemed genuinely delighted to read out a story from another country, especially when they found the story to have similarities to their own lives. In the spirit of bingo prizes were given.

People exchanging stories at our Voiceover bingo event

In Blackhall we worked with groups and individuals from the local Community Centre (formerly the Miners’ Welfare Centre), Blackhall Library, Blackhall Local History Group, and The Women’s Institute.