About

Living local history

Herefordshire Lore collects, publishes and archives people’s recollections.

Sustainable

We’re a voluntary group and we’ve been collecting and publishing people’s memories since 1989. Herefordshire Lore was started by writer Bill Laws and story-teller Lenny Alsop with support from two Herefordshire arts officers, Veronica Jamset and Natalia Silver. Since then over 150 people have been recorded – and half a million words of reminiscence stored for posterity at Herefordshire Records Office.

Creative

In projects like Home Made – Home Grown and Butchers, Bakers, Cider Makers we interview ordinary, working people: munitioneers, housewives, farmers, railway men, domestics, butchers, shop keepers, publicans, cattle dealers, auctioneers. We’ve talked to over 50 local groups, published books, booklets and a decade of Age to Age before launching In Our Age.

Responsible

When we find funding, our team records people, one-to-one, transcribes the recording, and lodges the master copies with Herefordshire Archive Service. Projects are monitored by a group of older people. We work closely with the Museums and Libraries Service, and groups like Age Concern.

Resourceful

We rely on grants, subscriptions, donations and advertising and on our volunteers. In Our Age costs over £6,000 a year. It’s free, because we want everyone to read it.

Key dates

1989 Herefordshire Lore founded

1992 Amazing How Times Change (published). Dramatised extracts performed by Hereford Youth Theatre

1993 Launch of Age To Age

1996 The Shopkeepers Tale published

1997 The Schoolchildren's Tale published

2002 South Wye Community Funds preliminary interviews with former munitions workers

2003 In The Munitions: Women at War in Herefordshire (published)

2003 Funding crisis: Age To Age shuts down after eleven years

2004 A Wartime Walk leaflet, Rotherwas (published)

2005 Home Front Lottery grant for Home Made – Home Grown

2006 In Our Age first published

2007 Heritage Lottery grant for Butchers, Bakers, Cider-makers

2007 A Slap of the Hand – The History of Hereford Market (published)