52 The Lawns, Home of Hackney Silver Surfers.

Hackney Home Movies.

An opportunity to see this special programme of films from the Hackney Archive, which also includes new footage collected during the Rio’s recent ‘Home Movies’ project. The original screening of this programme took place in January to a packed house. Now the Rio is offering three opportunities for the over-60s to see this material for free!

Part of a series of events to mark the Rio’s landmark 100th anniversary, this screening features footage of Hackney landmarks throughout the last century, enabling us all to relive the borough’s rich and vibrant history on the big screen.

Plus – free tea and biscuits!

Screening Dates.

• Wednesday 17 March: 11 am.
• Wednesday 24 March: 11 am.
• Wednesday 5 May: 11 am.

Doors open at 10.15 am.

For more information please call Jemma on 020 7241 9419 or email jemma@riocinema.org.uk .

Remember the Blitz?

When The Blitz got going in Hackney on the night of September 7th 1940, people just did not know what was going to hit them. Do you remember when high explosives were smashing into houses across Hackney, everywhere from Mare Street, to the Lower Clapton Road, and Well Street, Kenninghall Road, London Fields, Hackney Police Station, Lauriston Road, King Edwards Road and all those other places? Or the next night, when over seventy bombs crashed down across Shoreditch, Hackney and Stoke Newington.

Asking the Experts.

Well, it is nearly seventy years since The Blitz began, but there are still lots of people now who remember Hackney way back then. The air raids and the Anderson shelters, the blackouts, the fires and the smoke; remember being evacuated or staying and sleeping in Tube stations, seeing London blown to pieces in front of your eyes — and gradually rebuilt into the Hackney we can recognise today?

Plus there are plenty more people who were only little during World War Two, but grew up hearing loads of stories from their families about their life during the Blitz; and there are others who know what it was like when someone in their family travelled from the Caribbean to England to help with the war effort.

So, lots of people are still looking after so many memories: if you are one of them, we think that makes you an expert. Children and young people have questions about the Blitz that you might know the answer to: what it was like to be sitting in your classroom one minute, and then rushing down into the shelter when the air raid siren went: or listening out for doodlebugs. And how different did Hackney look before the war and during the Blitz compared to now? What were the cool places for kids to hang out way back then?

If you are one of these experts, maybe you could help children and young people with some of their questions about Hackney during and after the Blitz. You could do it by writing down some of your memories and stories; or answering some childrens’ questions by e-mail, or even coming to one of the Question & Answer session we are organising for Local History Month in May.

If you would like to get involved and share some of your memories, please send an e-mail to us at ebones@blueyonder.co.uk (or write to POB 44684, London N16 0XY) to let us know you would like to hear more about this.

And if you have memories or stories that you would like us to include in a Hackney and The Blitz ebook planned for this website, don’t be shy! Just write them down and send them over to us at ebones@blueyonder.co.uk — and let us do the rest.

Thanks to grants from Film London and the Goldsmiths’ Company, the Rio is beginning a series of events to mark their landmark 100th anniversary celebration with a special screening of films from the Hackney Archives.

The event will also feature new footage discovered during the Rio’s recent ‘Home Movies’ project. The films are a rich source of memories, featuring footage of Hackney landmarks throughout the last century, enabling us all to relive Hackney’s vibrant history on the big screen.

• Saturday 30 January, 1.30 pm.
• Tickets: £4 (£3 Concessions & Rio Friends).

To book tickets, or for more information, please contact: Rio Cinema, 107 Kingsland High Street, Dalston, E8 2PB / 020 7241 9410 .

Come and unleash your creativity in an eight-week series of creative writing workshops at the Geffrye Museum, with local resident and award-winning writer Donna Daley-Clarke.

This club is for any local resident over the age of 55 who is interested in writing — both beginners and budding authors. Use the Geffrye’s historic almshouse to trigger your thoughts, memories and inspire your writings.

• Dates: Tuesdays 2 February, 9 February, 23 February, 9 March, 16 March, 23 March, 30 March and 20 April.
• Times: 10.00 - 11.45 am.

The sessions are free, but places are limited and must be booked in advance. Tea, coffee and materials are provided.

Please contact: Sarah Fairbairn, Bookings & Information Officer, Tel: 020 7739 9893, email: bookings@geffrye-museum.org.uk .

Would you like to be in a dance film? Are you aged 50 or over?

East London Dance is making a short dance film about the heritage and people of Dalston and we are looking for dancers aged 50 or over.

We are running a workshop at The Sharp End (11 Richmond Road, Dalston, E8 3HY) on Monday 25 January, 12.15 – 1.45 pm.

You will meet artistic director for the project Colin Poole, and film maker Dean Stewart and try out some ideas.

To be involved you must available during the week of Monday 8 February when filming will take place. All filming will be done on sites around Dalston during that one week.

See you there!

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Emma Kerr, Creative Projects Manager on emma@eastlondondance.org or 020 8279 1052.

Hackney Routes is a family history project with the aim to support local people to record and document their ancestors and descendants from Africa and the Caribbean by exploring the inter-connection between Hackney and the international dimension which have shaped family history and cultural identity locally.

The project will work with individuals and family members who live or have strong family connections with the borough. Participants must be willing to develop a case study based on interviews and research of an aspect of their family history which can be shared with others in the borough.

We are looking for people who will have an interest in family history, commitment to write or be interviewed as part of the case study and to attend sessions.

There will be sessions on using archives/records, preserving documents and photographs, creative writing, interviewing and the importance of DNA. The end product will be case studies on the Hackney Route blog/website. Future plans could be the development of a family history network, potential future exhibition and publication.

Participants will have a chose of choosing one or more areas to focus on their family history and the connections with Hackney:

Being in Hackney.

• When our family first came to Hackney.
• Spirituality/Places of worship.
• Night clubbing, raving and house parties.
• Our front room.
• Living in Hackney (any period from the 1940s to the 1990s).

Travels.

• The ones who were left behind.
• Travelling for the first time to my parents’/grandparents’ homeland.
• Ancestors from different parts of the world.
• Achievements and success of individuals/family members.

Memories.

• Herbs/medicine and spices.
• Soul Food/Recipes from back in the day.
• We Are Family (three generations that are still connected).
• What my Mama used to say (folk stories/tales from the past).

The course is free of charge and the workshops will take place in Hackney Museum, Hackney Archives and other community venues in the borough. Due to nature of the workshops and activities we can only have a limited number of participants.

Course orientation: Thursday 26 November, 6 pm at Hackney Museum, Reading Lane, E8 1GQ.

The sessions will be facilitated by Every Generation.

To register for the course please contact Cheryl Bowen on 020 8356 3500, or email cheryl.bowen@hackney.gov.uk .

Did you live through the Blitz? Would you like to share your experiences with the rest of the nation?

Channel 4 are looking for men and women from in and around London to talk about their experiences of the Blitz for a series about The Second World War. The series is set to be an exciting and interesting look at this time, however each programme really needs a human voice, first hand accounts from people who lived during the Blitz.

If you are interested in sharing your experiences with us, initially over the phone, please contact Kim Lask at Impossible Pictures …

• Phone: 020 7467 1413 .
• Email: Kim.Lask@impossiblepictures.co.uk .

Aspiring filmmakers are calling on Londoners with memories of the 1948 Olympics to come forward and take part in a series of short documentaries.

We are looking for people who remember the excitement of the 1948 London games; people who remember the atmosphere, the state of London and of course all the different sporting achievements and are willing to share their stories. We would be especially interested in speaking to anyone who was actively involved in the 1948 Olympic Games.

To find out more, or to get yourself or anyone you might know involved, contact East End Film Festival Director, Alison Poltock

• Email: alison.poltock@towerhamlets.gov.uk .
• Phone: 020 7364 7903 .

Further Information

The VAULT project, supported by the London Development Authority, Tower Hamlets 2012 Unit and Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, aims to join together different sections of the community including young people, the elderly and athletes of all ages.

The project will see young people from the 5 Olympic boroughs being trained in digital filmmaking and will produce a series of documentaries in autumn 2009. They will interview athletes, spectators and workers from the 1948 London Olympics. These interviews will be interwoven with archived material from the Games which was the first to be televised on terrestrial TV.

A video art project for Gillett Square.

Agewell Computer Club members will have an opportunity to get involved with this wonderful project from Hackney Co-operative Developments. We will have an introductory session on Monday 8 June (starting soon after 2 pm), followed by a longer workshop on Monday 15 June.

Below is a brief project summary (obviously participants will not be expected to have any previous experience of filming, and your computer skills will not have to be any better than they are now!) …

What is Mezzo Moderno, Mezzo Distrutto?

The title for this project in Italian translates as ‘Half Modern, Half Destroyed’ and it comes from a conversation artist Larisa Blazic overheard when someone was trying to explain what Dalston looked like to a friend. Larisa is proposing to make a new artwork about Dalston’s architecture for Gillett Square in November and she wants to get local people involved in making it. The idea for the project is to ask you to film your ‘views’ of Dalston’s architecture as short films on your mobile phone or a camera. This could be views from one of the windows in your home, or from the old and new buildings you encounter while walking around this local area. Larisa Blazic will then use this material to make both a website and a big video projection ‘collage’ of images on Gillett Square in November.

This is a picture of another project Larisa did in Homerton:

Night shot of Morning Lane, deserted.

For the first session on 8th June we would like to come along and introduce the project to you and answer any questions you might have about what is involved. On 15th June for the second session, we would look more at how films are uploaded and used for the artwork.

Larisa is working with me, Emma Jones, from Hackney Co-operative Developments. I have organised the events that have happened on Gillett Square before. It would be fantastic if you are interested in taking part!

Our website: http://gillettsquare.org.uk .