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Fran Walker - My LHI Story
Fascinating facts about Somerset's Willow
Kate Lynch - my LHI story
Willow - exhibition of paintings & drawings
Willow - Kate Lynch's Book
from Thatch magazine
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from Thatch magazine
Location: Somerset
Celebrating Somerset's Willow - an extract from an article about the Somerset Willow project published in Thatch, the quarterly magazine of the Community Council for Somerset (Summer 2003)
"We’re here to encourage people to investigate and record their local heritage, then to promote and celebrate it," says Local Heritage Initiative Regional Adviser Chris Burke.
And that’s exactly what the LHI scheme has achieved with the ‘Celebrating Somerset’s Willow’ project, which was originally inspired by a local artist’s interest in a traditional industry.
The project has investigated and recorded the willow industry through oral history interviews with craftspeople, drawings, paintings and sculpture produced by schoolchildren in workshops with professional artists and willow workers, and exhibition displays and leaflets detailing the how, where, when and why of the willow.
But perhaps the project’s greatest success is that it has acted as a catalyst to revive personal and professional connections between workers in what had become a quite fragmented industry but now has plans to co-operate and communicate more in the future. A directory is being produced, and there’s talk of starting up a Willow Growers’ Association again.
"Important as it is to preserve and protect our heritage," says Chris Burke, “the most valuable rewards from LHI projects are the links and relationships forged between the people who take part.”
“For me,” adds Fran Walker of LAMP (the Levels and Moors Partnership), who has co-ordinated the project, “the best part of this has been bringing together people from the same industry who hadn't been meeting professionally for over 30 years - quite an achievement! Everyone involved has been able to make lots of new working relationships and contacts in the area.”
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