Roots Around Paddock (RAP)

Suga Brown Creative Arts Ltd has been awarded £24,600 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to run the Roots Around Paddock project.

Phase 1 involves students from Royds Hall School exploring the school’s history from 1900 – 2000. They interviewed pupils and their own families and made a DVD of an interview with a retired teacher who had written a history of the school.

They found it had been a War Hospital in World War 1, had housed refugees and evacuees, that Harold Wilson had been a pupil and they even traced a descendant of a 1914 Belgian refugee.

Inspiration for the project came from youth worker Chris Dickinson who felt it would be interesting for young people to know something about the area’s history – and the exhibition at the school attracted a lot of ex-pupils and local people.

Phase 2 looks at the general history of Paddock and an improvised drama/dance performance based on this by local young people will take place in summer 2008. Research includes talking to local people at the Village Hall, the churches, local organisations and looking at how Paddock has changed over time (eg both these former churches have different uses: one is the Village Hall and the other is being developed as a Mosque).