Please note: We have returned to meeting in the evenings. and will open from 6:45pm for a 7:30pm start.
Non members are most Welcome to attend Guest fee £2.
Our speaker today was Ann Austin a Railway Historian. She gave a brief outline of the Ashford 180 project of which she is part of which celebrates 180 years of the railway coming to Ashford.
The main body of her talk was ‘The Peoples’ Library’. She started with a quote from an African proverb ‘when an old person dies a library burns’. Everyone, young and old, have experiences that can be shared if we had the means to capture them. The Peoples Library was started to capture oral histories about the railway around Ashford. People that worked on the railway, worked in the works, travelled on the railway etc. Ann is based in Newtown, one of the first ‘model’ villages built for the Railway employees and her interest stems from growing up there. She told us some fascinating histories of the people and houses. The project has grown and grown and now they need volunteers to transcribe, not only the oral histories but people have provided handwritten and email histories too.
It was a fascinating talk and there was a long question and answer session afterwards. We shall definitely have Ann back next year as she has other talks about railway based personnel and their histories.
At the last Ashford branch committee meeting it was seriously considered whether we should cease meeting during the winter months [January, February and March]. If we do decide to do this we would reopening meetings in the Barn at Willesborough Windmill from April 2023 and our meeting dates will be published in the KFHS Journal and on this website.