Since April 2016 I’ve been building a digital archive for The Heritage of Orchards and Cider Making in Wales project, a 2-year project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and run by the Welsh Perry & Cider Society and The George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling at The University of south Wales.
By travelling the length and width of Wales, I’ve collected and edited oral histories and digital stories, through interviews recorded with cider and perry producers, community orchard groups, heritage organisations and individuals involved in orcharding and producing the very Welsh produce called cider and perry. Within this period I delivered many digital story workshops & Pop Up Story shops for community orchard groups at traditional folk events like Wassails all over Wales. In April 2017 I presented a paper on my work on the project at The Storytelling and Place Symposium held at The University of south Wales, Atrium.
I’m currently putting the final touches together for a touring mobile exhibition that will interpret the project as a whole. The exhibition will visit venues from May 2018 starting at The National Waterfront Museum Swansea and taking in National Trust properties at Erddig Hall, Wrexham & Dyffryn Gardens in the Vale of Glamorgan, The Welsh Perry and Cider Festival 2018 at Caldicot Castle , The National Eisteddfod Genedlaethol 2018 in Cardiff & Hereford Cider Museum.
Find the digital story collection in the link below:
The Heritage of Orchards & Cider Making in Wales project
The collection will be in available in mid 2018 as a public resource via its own website, The People’s Collection Wales and St Fagans National History Museum.
Find out more about the project here:
https://www.welshcider.co.uk/heritage
http://storytelling.research.southwales.ac.uk/heritagecider/
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Below are some snaps I took on my journeys.
Catrin Saran James 