ARTSPACE: AROUND THE BANDSTAND

First, a bit of music to set the scene..click back when you've got the idea.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNYwMCJ17Sg ..Ok? John Murphy is well-known around Barrow, as Councillor, Mayor and organiser of walks to Piel Island from his beloved Walney. He tells a good story, does John. He talked to us about his teenage years, about the coffee bars and dances, about courting his late wife, and his delight in the colour and flowers in the Park. In this excerpt he conjures a vivid image of Barrow Park Life in the 60's.... https://soundcloud.com/art-space-756835798/john-murphy-for-blog This postcard (above) was kindly loaned by Mike Burns. Mike's wife Sheila was involved in the Park re-development and the Friends Of Barrow Park Commitee and Mike has an enormous collection of postcards from Barrow...you'll be seeing more of them.

This is Heather Horner, she is the Librarian at the Mail, Barrow's newspaper. We met at Forum 28 when Heather was presenting an exhibition of old advertisements from the Mail, some very strange stuff indeed....as part of the show Heather had brought along some preserved and bound editions of the Mail from the 1950's and earlier, and allowed me to take some pictures. The Mail began to carry pictures in the 40's, and it's photographers would often visit the Park to record the change of the seasons or catch the latest crop of ducklings on the lake. This shot shows the Park playground's legendary Banana Slide in 1952, and just that week I'd spoken to historian and writer Gill Jepson about how it loomed over her in the 60's...here's a snippet from our conversation.... https://soundcloud.com/art-space-756835798/gill-jepson-banana-slide-for-blog

We've been regular visitors to the Local Studies collection in Barrow Library over the past few years.  It's a fantastic and almost bottomless resource run by some very friendly and helpful people who really know their stuff. You'll find photographs, digitally preserved newspapers, books, maps..all sorts of primary source information that'll help you find the history of your street, your school, or your Auntie that ran away to sea... You can find more about it here.. https://www.cumbria.gov.uk/archives/archivecentres/balsc.asp I spent a few days in March going through the beautifully bound copies of  Council Minutes from Edwardian times to see what I could find about the early days of the Park and it's Bandstand..and sure enough on the right is the very first mention of the Bandstand, from 1910. It reads: "The Chairman stated that Alderman Smith had offered to present a Bandstand for the Public Park." Many thanks to the Local Studies Library...

Introducing the Artspace Heritage project, Around The Bandstand, in which with the support of the Heritage Lottery Foundation we look at  Barrow Park, the Bandstand and at their place in the social life of the town. This is our first Heritage project. You may have seen or been involved with our schools arts projects. These are always to do with the history, geography or some other aspect of our locale; we've worked with several schools in Barrow and South Cumbria, and we currently have 3 artists working in and round the Sir John Barrow Cottage in Ulverston.  Around The Bandstand involves Artspace and Bram Longstaffe Nursery, but mainly it's to do with the people who have used the park over the years, whether for entertainment, as a playground, a courting spot or a place to find some space and quiet. Councillor Helen Wall helped get things rolling with her Barrow's Beautiful Places event at Forum 28 in Barrow. We met some lovely people, including many old friends, and ...