onionbagblog

To the William Loveless Hall! [where else?] …on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon for John Stewart’s superb Wivenhoe Memories exhibition. This has long since been a highlight in the hyperlocal calendar for all lovers of Wivenhoe history. Judging by the Loveless Hall love-in late on Monday afternoon, there are many within Wivenhoe to whom hyperlocal history matters.

Spanning across three days of the Bank Holiday weekend and two rooms in the Loveless Hall, John has curated a collection of public and personal photographs, documents and various memorabilia that helps us to understand how Wivenhoe has changed as a town, but also as a hat tip as to how we have got here.

This is no history lesson but a loosely themed offering of the many stands of Wivenhoe life over the past three hundred years or so. It is also a very high social occasion. Walking around the tables and display boards and you can’t but help share your observations with the fellow hyperlocal historians.

It all got a little personal when a local lady declared:

“Granddad is over there, and Great Granddad can be found in the far corner.”

Thankfully she wasn’t pointing down towards St Mary’s at the time.

The randomness of the exhibition works well. Themes such as shipping, sport or education are well presented, but you don’t get the feeling that you are being guided with a firm hand around one of those linear museum displays that fail abysmally to tell a historical timeline story as you are guided around.

There was no Exit by the Gift Shop either, although the bucket for Madam Mayor’s Charity was doing brisk business on the way out.

Some personal highlights included a photograph of G.A. Went’s Bicycle Shop [ooh!] which is now the base for the Wivenhoe Bookshop. The old Co-op along The Avenue “sometime in the ’70s” was also featured, as was a rare photo of White House (of White House Beach fame…)

Positioned poignantly towards the top table of the Loveless Hall was a large, framed photograph of Mr W.G. himself - a stern expression and a dress code that slightly differed to the dress down Bank Holiday flip-flops found on Monday afternoon.

What soon became clear as you walked around the William Loveless Hall is that the story of Wivenhoe can’t be told in isolation. In order to understand the social history then you need to know more about industry; the world of work impacts upon family life, which then leads to the social such as the many sporting clubs from past eras that were presented.

The hyperlocal economy in particular made for quite painful viewing. Long lost old Wivenhoe traders such as Mallets Hardware, Franks the Bakers and Mr Brown’s the Chemist are now but a fading photograph in the annual Wivenhoe Memories exhibition.

The decline of the hyperlocal economy is sadly a theme that still resonates around the town during the summer of 2012, although there is optimism with a number of new traders about to set up shop. For every old photo of a long shop front then there is a pertinent reminder that every penny counts when it comes to shopping locally 2012 style.

Down at the bottom end of the Loveless Hall and the Essex Social Family History team were on call to help with the more personal side of the historical quest. If the story of Wivenhoe is one that has previously been tough to tell, the current interest in documenting and keeping alive more recent memories will hopefully make future exhibitions easier to curate.

Perhaps the lasting …memory from the Wivenhoe Memories afternoon was that social history is a social activity in itself. The Loveless Hall was a world away from the Library across the road. Old documents may have been made available for viewing, but the conversations taking place around these created a real buzz in the old hall.

This is a community inspired exhibition, with many folk around the town kindly volunteering some very personal artefacts to share amongst others over the weekend. Shared social dialogue came out of these documents - folk were talking, remembering and even looking ahead to the future, having understood a little more about the past.

At the centre of all of this - although taking a very humble backseat role - is of course John Stewart. This exhibition was superbly curated, with great thought going into how to display such an immense catalogue of hyperlocal history.

Year after year and the Loveless Hall remains the highlight over the August Bank Holiday weekend in which to reflect and continue to explore Wivenhoe’s past.

Which in itself is history in the making.