Campaigner, activist and writer Jean McSorley gave a fascinating interview in which she discussed the town's former clubs and societies in which members combined leisure with education, skill development and self-advancement. Jean places the Park alongside these, seeing it as a gift to anyone with an enquiring eye, as an example of a more generous and further-sighted vision than we might expect from Victorian industrialists, and as something to value and maintain. Jean's family have a tangible legacy in the Park, and you can hear her explain it in this short clip..with the park lawnmower buzzing in the background. https://soundcloud.com/art-space-756835798/jean-mcsorely-for-blog The postcard is another from Mike Burn's collection. Thank you Mike.
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...
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