Since our last update on the ‘Linking Lifetimes’ project, our lovely group of adults have continued their visits into Crowan Primary School, to exchange stories and collaborate with children. It has been great to see so many of the adults returning each session and the classroom has come alive with laugher, chatter and excitement.
In March we invited adults to bring in personal photographs that they wanted to share with the children. These photographs, mostly in B&W, encompassed a range of subjects including childhood, wartime, celebrations and clubs in Praze.
The children easily slipped into their roles as Story Explorers, questioning the adults in order to unearth the stories behind the adults’ photographs. A few notes on the board reminded the children of their Story Explorer tips, and the children did extremely well.

Neil reminiscing about Bordeaux Bakery
The whole point of this, unbeknown to the adults, was that we wanted them to work together to make a 2D creative clay plaque depicting the story of the photograph. The children were obviously experienced at clay work as they seamlessly guided their adult partners in the finer details of joining clay, making marks and textures and using clay tools. One group were particularly delighted when Neil took up some clay and started to make tiny roses just as he would have done with marzipan in his Bordeaux Bakery days. Everyone embraced the activity, resulting in some very impressive plaques incorporating wording, borders and intricate characters. These depicted scenes such as the school burning down, Bordeaux Bakery, playground games, picnicking at Carbis Bay and Praze railway station.
At the end of the session everyone was able to share their plaques, and the stories behind them. It was clear that everyone was proud to have made something together.
The ‘Linking Lifetimes’ project is kindly funded by the Big Lottery Fund.