Craster Living History - Online
Craster folk have been saying for some time that the village
is at risk of losing its community memories. As a Church Newsletter
reminded us after the death of Howick Scar farmer Willy Curry
in 1995, 'when an old friend dies, a library is lost'.
Unless we do preserve our local social heritage we will forfeit
a thread of continuity which connects generations and links
past, present and future. Shared memories are especially precious
in rural villages as population patterns change and more and
more homes are bought as holiday houses.
Fortunately, the experiences and stories of older villagers
were valued enough for the Craster Community Development Trust,
with Michael Gibbs as a driving force, to make
a bid for funding to The Countryside Agency, which had launched
a
national
scheme
to support heritage projects run by community groups. A small,
local-history group was awarded a grant from the Local
Heritage Initiative Fund to finance the Craster Village History
Project, which has run from January 2003 until March 2005.
Use the links
to navigate the site and find out more about the lives
and times of the people of Craster, telling the story in
their own words of what it has been like living in rural Northumberland
over the years. There are plenty of photographs depicting
the area local to
Craster
in Northumberland,
together with parts of texts transcribed from interviews
with key memory bearers giving valuable insight into what life
has
been like over the years and just how much things have
changed and evolved.
Painting by Mick Oxley
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