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Schools
Bury Primary School Local history project
Bury CE Primary school, alongside the Friends Of The South Downs Society are involved in a 2 year lottery-funded project to record memories of the South Downs, and to preserve these memories for future generations. The project aims to record these oral histories and preserve them as a video archive so that these precious and culturally important memories are available for both children and adult researchers in the future. The history in books often concentrates on the ‘big figures’ from the past, but this project values the day to day life of ordinary people who have lived and worked in this area of the national park. These kinds of memories are often forgotten after people die or move away and it is really important that we don’t lose these links to our past. We would really like to hear from anyone who has lived in or around the villages of Bury, West Burton, Bignor, Sutton, Madehurst, Slindon, Amberley, Houghton, and the surrounding areas. We are particularly interested in anyone who has worked or enjoyed leisure time on the Downs. We'd like to find out how the area has changed over time and would also really love to see any old photos or documents that you have that relate to the area.
St James Coldwaltham World Book Day
If you were lucky enough to be in the vicinity of St James’ School in Coldwaltham on Thursday 5th March you might have spotted Anne Shirley from Green Gables, Fantastic Mr Fox, Pippi Longstockings, Mr Bump, Harry Potter and Meg March walking up the lane to the school. These characters were attending the school Pupil dressed as Mr Bump in honour of World Book Day, an annual celebration of reading that is on a mission to give all children a book. The children made a wonderful effort to dress up as their favourite characters and brought with them the corresponding book to share with their schoolmates as part of the mission to share a million stories. Children confidently came to the front of the hall to talk about their most loved stories and, afterwards, offered to read books to their classmates or children in younger years. Many of the children brought with them a book they had purchased or claimed in exchange for a £1
Ideally we would love to record some memories from a long time ago as well as more recent history. The children at Bury will be working alongside professional film makers, website designers, local historians and the archivists at the West Sussex record office to discover hidden histories of the South Downs and to see if they can unearth any fascinating oral histories that have already been recorded. If you think that you could spare some time to help in our search for information either at the West Sussex record office in Chichester or at the mass observation archive in Brighton then we’d love to hear from you. We will be able to give you training in how to search the archives and how to record the information that you find. Bury School is not working alone on this project and other schools from Findon, Worthing and Shipley will also be conducting research about their areas of the South Downs. If you, or someone you know, has hidden memories of the South Downs, however small they might be, we would really love to hear from you. Please email Laura Braun events@bury.school or call Bury School on 01798 831502 for more information. Mr Moore, Headteacher www.bury.w-sussex.sch.uk World Book Day token earlier in the week when the school held a pop-up book shop. The whole day was a great success, the children had a wonderful time reading and sharing books together. Eden ‘I love dressing up because I get to be my Pupils dressed as their favourite character for favourite characters the day!’ Ben ‘I love getting to hear all of the different adventures that characters go on.’
Jon Gilbert, headteacher. For more information call 01798 872196 or visit www.st-james-coldwaltham.w-sussex.sch.uk.
