Over the last 20 months the Hidden Lives Remembered project has achieved so much and reached so many people. It has been fantastic to be a part of this project and to help make sure that this important part of our social history is not forgotten.

Here are some of our key achievements!

Our final exhibition series at Knowle, Hampton-in-Arden and central Solihull was a great success. We met lots of new people with new stories to tell, provided a space for former residents and staff to meet up for the first time in years and got great feedback.

Thanks to everyone who came to the exhibitions, and thanks to our fantastic volunteers for their time!

This article uses historical terminology which some readers may find upsetting or offensive.

Recently we were loaned a folder full of press cuttings about Hampton Manor by the Trustees of Hampton Manor Homes.

One of the earliest articles is from August 19th 1956, from Birmingham-based newspaper, the Sunday Mercury.

It is titled “They are the Peter Pans of the 1950s - The Warwickshire manor house that is home for the forgotten few”.

This will be my last blog with SAtA, I thought I had been here 9 years but I have realised I have been here for 10 years…

Over a series of Saturday mornings, we have been digitising, editing and transcribing a series of interviews recorded in 1995 given by people who used to work at Middlefield Hospital, shortly after it closed in 1992. These interviews were recorded by The Knowle Society, who were also interested in capturing people’s memories and recollections of Middlefield before they were lost.

We are nearing the end of the Hidden Lives Remembered project and we are still discovering new things. We have recently discovered that some people travelled very long distances to live at Hampton Manor. Some even came from different countries. We have been gathering data on maps to show how far people travelled to Hampton Manor.

On Tuesday 16th July 2019 Kathy, Colom, Claire and I met at the train station to travel down to Milton Keynes for the Open University’s Social History of Learning Disability Conference.

Firstly, very many thanks to Rebecca who has spent several mornings editing audio for the project!

She has also taken the time to write this blog reflecting on her time working on the project. It is a follow-up to the one she wrote just before starting volunteering with us.

Recently we have been running some Arts Workshops at Forest Oak School, a local SEN school. We have been working with Craig Gilman (Painty) to produce these.

Recently me, Claire, Patty and Kathy (2 of our volunteers) went to visit Hampton Manor with former residents Pauline, Caroline, Pam and Michelle. They also brought along Grania and Annmarie, who support them in their new homes.

On Saturday 18th May 2019 we had our exhibition for our Hidden Lives project, to show what we have done so far as we are now half way through. We had a brilliant turn out and it was great to show all our hard work that we have done and what else is still planned for the rest of the project.

A recent article from Middlefield has reminded me of a time in my life that I hadn’t thought about in ages until I saw the article. It is about my pilgrimages to Lourdes and the different ways I was treated there because of my disability.

Halfway through the project and ahead of our Exhibition Day, Jennifer looks back on her journey so far.

NOTICE: This blog post refers to historical terminology which some people may find offensive.

In the first of a series of blog posts discussing what we have found at the Archives, we look at the case of Edward Hickman.

One of the newspaper articles we came across at Warwickshire County Record Office talks about the yearly pancake races at Middlefield Hospital. The article is from 1988, in the Solihull Times.

In the latest edition of the Knowle United Reformed Church’s magazine, the Reverend Jo’ Williams wrote a lovely piece about November’s Launch Event.

On Monday 28th January 2019 we had our second archive visit, and this time we were looking more in detail at the documents.

I have decided to do this Communication Blog about some of our service users here at SAtA and celebrities with disabilities, as I think that they are an inspiration to other people and they are showing that just because you have a disability, you are the same as everyone else and are able to work.

I'm just starting to help out with Hidden Lives Remembered. I'm going to be: creating website content, transcribing and editing audio interviews and helping to interview people. But to start with, I'm going to talk about what I knew about learning disability history and how the induction materials have educated me about learning disability history.

For #HeritageTreasures Day, Jennifer looks back at the Middlefield Hospital foundation stone.

Learn about why this piece of heritage is so important to her here.