Our Story
(Creative Partnerships, 2003)
Our Story developed out of a residency at Lauriston School (an inner city primary in Hackney). When Rachel was asked to develop a creative writing project she encouraged the entire school community to start exploring their own family stories. Teachers attended inset days, helped run workshops and began investigations. Parents came to assemblies and archive days, where they brought in treasured family possessions and told remembered fragments of personal histories. Some have been inspired to conduct further research: assembling family trees and visiting archives.
The children in the school filled sketchbooks with beautiful drawings, family photographs and snippets of interviews with elderly relatives. They uncovered stories about their area from libraries and talking with local people. They became enthusiastic detectives into their own histories. This book records a small portion of the wealth of material gathered for Our Story.