So, its 2005 i'm 16 years old and I've just finished my last year at The Hammond School of Dance, down Mannings Lane, in Hoole...I'm happy to be finishing, to end that chapter of my life, I suppose you could say its an end of an era. I cant help the sad feeling, as I leave all my friends, my favorite teachers and the safe little white house with the pretty gardens and the small classrooms. "I wont miss the Dancing, I'm making the right decision." I tell myself over and over. As I head into the unknown I wonder what the next chapter of my life holds...
6 years on I've had so many opportunities, and found so many things that have held my attention for a long time, this surprised me as I have a pretty poor attention span.
At the Military Museum I've had my own little project for about 5 months which involved transcribing a tape from 1990 it was recorded at the Grosvenor Museum in Chester.
The Forgotten Front.
Bearing in mind I was 2 years old when the discussion between 10 people who where at different stages of their life during World War II, I found it really surreal/weird listening and typing up their exciting and terrifying experiences of wartime. I quickly became quite attached to the 10 brave people I had the privilege to listen to for the past 5 months.
3 months in, I found myself on page 19 and conversation turned onto the American Soldiers, the South Camp and the North Camp, when 3 familiar words escaped the mouth of a man called Len Morgan (who is know as Mr Handbridge as he knows everything there is to know about Handbridge) it turned out that The Hammond School, the place I had spent 5 years of my life, was the North Camp, and was home to the American Soldiers (they lived in wooden huts not the Mansion type house). It was so strange to hear him talk about my high school, and the part it played in WWII.
The Hammond School was the North Camp.
A part of me wishes that I had known about it while I was at school there so I could of researched it a bit while I was at school there, but I suppose when your younger you don't really appreciate or think about what happened in the years before you.
I find coincidences strange and sometimes unbelievable, I like to think I was meant to do this transcription, maybe the link between me and The Hammond School made me appreciate and relate to what the 10 people had to say,
I think in this circumstance the word fate could be used instead of coincidence!
I don't know what is was that made the archivist ask me to do this transcription...
But I'm sure glad she did!
xox
