About
Welcome to our Paul Voices project.
In 2018, St. Pol de Leon Church was awarded Heritage Lottery funding to develop an oral history project with the community of Paul, Cornwall. Regular sessions were run over the year training volunteers on how to record people’s memories and stories about Paul Parish (Paul Parish includes Paul, Mousehole, and part of Newlyn (Gwavas), and part of Lamorna Valley). The project culminated at Paul Feast Tea event during 2018 Feast Week.
Alice King with the Crankie
The Crankie
The event was so well attended and enjoyed by the community that we were encouraged to continue to develop the collection of oral histories and to build an even larger body of recorded interviews.
We applied to Heritage Fund and Awards for All to continue running the sessions for another year in order to carry on collecting oral histories, continue interpreting the material and share at 6 seasonal events throughout 2019/2020.
New Year event
Paul Feast Tea 2019
In light of COVID-19, our plans have adapted and we have been focusing on launching this website which will hold oral history extracts, archive photos, stories, poems etc. Our events will continue but will be virtual – we hope that you will take part and participate by contributing memories, funny life episodes, or experiences from schooldays, the village fete, events on the village green tales of Feast, carnival, shops, sports, church events, nicknames…anything at all.
Those of you out there who are suddenly having to home-school, try a bit of local history comparisons with our 21st century way of life and life in the 20th century. Children and adults can submit present day stories, you may even wish to write about what is happening now and how different it is to life just a few weeks ago.
The Paul Voices team include:
Barbara Santi, Director awen productions CIC
Pauline Sheppard, Writer/Performer
Mel Mitchell, Writer/Performer
Chris Osborne, Digital Manager
Peter Robinson, Volunteer Interviewer
Hilary Beard, Volunteer Interviewer / Researcher
Elizabeth Garner, Researcher/Writer
Morvah Stubbings, Researcher
Diana Ayres, Researcher
Kate Picknett, Researcher