The Gorge Garrett Archive project

The shortest month of the year feels like the busiest for some time. For the last week our feet have hardly touched the ground. Here’s how it’s been with the project in the past five days:

Monday 24th February:

Morning - Very excited to meet some fabulous, although pretty nervous looking, second year Art and design students from Liverpool John Moores University presenting the latest designs for the installation. Can’t tell you how impressed me and Tony Wailey were with their work and their proposals. As you can see from the image, it is designed to suggest a stokehold on a ship, while carrying as much information as possible, including many archive items, in a way that is accessible to all ages. It will also, through the use of the pipes, include a ‘soundscape’, suggesting the noise of the sea. The next stage is a mock up, and then on to the build.

Evening - The Archive volunteers met again on Monday evening. Led by Tony Wailey and Val Stevenson, the group got down to the task of cataloguing and indexing the artefacts we have collected. This is now the key task required to get everything in to place for the opening of the archive exhibition at Liverpool Central Library in May. Great work by the group, and something we will be continuing with each Monday evening at LJMU’s Aldham Robarts Library, Maryland Street, 6pm, every Monday.

Evening - On Monday night we also had local actor, Paul Duckworth, with us. He took time out from his rehearsals for the new Everyman Theatre’s opening play, Twelfth Night, to record the voice over of George Garrett’s Voice for the short film. We have been granted the use of a state of the art recording booth from LJMU for this work – much thanks to them for that.

Tuesday 25th: 
Mike Morris travelled over to Nottingham with Chris Chadwick from The Hatch TV - http://www.thehatch.tv/, to film Professor John Lucas. John pioneered the research and discovery of neglected and forgotten working class writing, and was the main mover behind the publication of Michael Murphy’s excellent collection of George Garrett’s short stories. John, although retired is incredibly active with his own writing, and also as a publisher with his ‘Shoestring Press’, through which he publishes a huge amount of memoir and poetry. He’s the type of person you could chat with all day, extremely knowledgeable, generous with his time, and also with his thoughts on George Garrett’s work, which he regards very, very highly.

Wednesday 26th: 
Almost disaster, but Alexei a trooper. In the midst of lots of prep for Thursday – finalising the script for the voice over recording, working out locations, etc., Alxei Sayle emails to say he’s been in bed all day with a heavy cold…but he’s still coming on Thursday to record the VO with us. Hallelujah!

Thursday 27th:
Me, Wes storey, Chris Chadwick, Tony Wailey and Stuart Borthwick (WoW Trustee and LJMU Programme manager), recce at the Redmond Building to finalise details for the day. Me and Tony then get down to Lime Street to meet Alexei off the train. Quietly spoken, suffering with cold, but no doubt delighted to see us, we whisk him back up to the Redmond building and, by way of grabbing coffee and water, get straight into the recording studio. He’s surprising clear even with his cold, and it’s a take in just over an hour. Happy days. We do the inevitable shot down at a very windy Albert Dock, and get him inside for a warm lunch. I’m sure he was disappointed to leave us, but he did look rather relieved to be getting back on the train. And not one ‘hello John got a new motor’ gag from us all day.

Friday 28th: I wrote this blog, and sorted all the receipts. As you do. Roll on the weekend!


Mike Morris. 

What's Your Story? Stroke Association Film

Performance artist, Curtis Watt worked with stroke survivors in association with The Stroke Association. The group ran for six weeks and ended with a performance at the Liverpool Central Library. This What's Your Story? creative writing course enabled stroke survivors to tell their story about the impact of stroke and life after stroke.The celebration event, held at The Central Library, was a night of inspirational stories and poetry.

                                                        Watch it here. 

The George Garrett Archive Project.

Field Trip to Liverpool’s Central Library. 

10th May. 
After a short break following the end of the sixteen-week taught modules that finished two weeks ago, fifteen of the group, plus myself and Tony Wailey, met up at Liverpool’s newly refurbished Central Library to meet Archivist Helena Smart and discuss the next stage of the project to catalogue, index and prepare the material for exhibition.

We were treated to a tour of the library facilities and even went backstage to see the state of the art technology at the heart of Liverpool’s archiving system, which is home to fifteen miles worth of Liverpool’s records going back to the 1700’s.

We then sat down with Helena who explained the concept behind archiving, and various methods used to develop indexes and catalogue records, which we will develop to ensure the George Garrett Archive is
available for future generations to use for research and knowledge and pure, simple enjoyment.

Meeting LJMU Art & Design Students.

Later in the week Mike and Tony Wailey met the Jon Spruce, head of Art and Design at Liverpool John Moores University, and three of his second year students who are working with us to design and create a public installation about Garrett’s life and work.

The session was really exciting, with each student showing us their drawings and proposals for a design. We’ll put these up online soon; they are all so god that, no matter what design we finally decide on, they are all worth viewing, and are a fabulous record of the development of the project and the talent of each student.

At our next meeting we get down to the task of cataloguing, indexing, and preparing the archive for display Liverpool’s Central Library in May.

The George Garrett Archive project workshops are free and open to all. We meet every Monday, 6-8pm. For our next session on Monday 17th February, we will be meeting at LJMU’s Aldham Robarts Library, MaryLand Street. L1 9DE (off HopeStreet).