The audience arrives for the screening

Tuesday 1 December saw the world premiere of the film, One Thing I Wanted to Tell You.

An audience of 80 people, including the participants and their friends, family and neighbours, plus guests from Wandsworth Council, took their seats at the Cornerstone in Roehampton and watched the first screening of the 20-minute film.

Seeing themselves on the screen was a bit of a shock to some, but on the whole people seemed to enjoy the film and lots of positive comments were heard.

The celebration day continued with musical entertainment and plenty of food and chatting.

We had seed cake, which apparently was war-time food, and peaches with evaporated milk. Cakes were set out on cake stands with doilies. It all reminded me of my Nana and got me thinking about my Australian grandfather who fought in the Middle East during the WWII. I was fascinated by his medals and the photos of him hanging around tanks with a cigarette in his mouth.
During the break several of the participants conceded to being interviewed by Sasha while I took some photos. I got talking to one lady who told me how she’d come to live in Roehampton from Paddington.
‘When we moved in, to the 7th floor, they were still building the floors below us.’ she said, laughing.
She told me how her and her young family had started off in the flat and gradually moved on to a semi-detached and then a detached, all in Roehampton.
‘I didn’t work in those days,’ she said, ‘I had too much to do at home. Not a bought cake or biscuit came into my house.’

‘What did you miss most during the war, what did you wish you had that you didn’t have?’ I asked another.
‘My mum,’ she said without any hesitation, ‘I’m getting a tear in my eye just thinking about it.’

Posing with certificates after the reminiscence training at York street library

There are few yabbies in the river now and not much water.

Not only did we plan out dates, groups and times, but we also came  up with a focus for the film – newness - partly because we plan to use new technology to share participants’ stories in different ways. We’re going to ask people to talk about the technology that was new in their day, and new experiences generally. We hope to weave this in to whatever theme the older people are discussing in their reminiscence sessions. 

We also decided to ask people to bring in photos and objects which (with permission of course) can be scanned and become part of the finished film. 

We’re looking forward to our reminiscence training day in early October. The first sessions will get going shortly after that in the middle of the month. The provisional date for the screening event of the finished film is 2 December, but we will of course keep everyone posted about that.