Welcome to the In Our Day project, based at Walkley Library in Sheffield.

Update on the Covid-19 Situation – and the In Our Day book!

Throughout 2019, In Our Day project co-ordinator Anne Grange and a team of dedicated and creative volunteers worked in care homes across Sheffield, creating poems with residents and capturing memories of Sheffield in the 20th century. It was a pleasure and a privilege to meet so many wonderful people from the residents and their relatives to the the staff. During the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, all these people have been in my thoughts and I hope that they are all keeping safe.

The In Our Day project put together a fantastic book, including all the poems written by the project and interviews, reminiscences and photos and it came back from the printers a week before lockdown. The books have been distributed to all the care homes that participated in the project, as well as to individual elderly people in the area. Several copies are available in the “Blue Sticker Collection” at Walkley Library and they are available for “click and collect“. Copies have also been distributed to libraries across Sheffield.

You can also buy the In Our Day book from Amazon.co.uk as an e-book or paperback, with all the royalties going straight to Walkley Carnegie Library! Click here to buy a copy of the book!

We hope to apply for further funding as soon as we can, so please watch this space for more news.

Dementia Friends Training, Wednesday 1st May 2019

We have now arranged for Kath Horner, the Chair of Sheffield Dementia Action Alliance to deliver a Dementia Friends training session at Walkley Library on Wednesday 1st May at 10am.

Here is more information about the Dementia Friends programme, which is run by the Alzheimer’s Society and aims to transform the way the nation thinks, acts and talks about dementia. For more information on the training, click here: www.dementiafriends.org.uk/

Places on the course are free but limited, so please get in touch to book a place soon. The course will run until 11am, but please stay around after that and find out more about becoming a volunteer for the In Our Day project.

For more information or to book a place, please ring 0114 2312947 (Walkley Carnegie Library) or email: inourday@walkleylibrary.org.uk .

Looking for Volunteers

At the moment, we are looking for volunteers who would like to  become dementia-friendly oral history recorders and workshop leaders, working with people with dementia and their carers in groups and as individuals, getting to know them and talking about the important things in life.

We are also looking for organisations to work with to deliver the project, for example, older people’s charities, lunch clubs, social clubs, nursing homes and supported living schemes. Here are more details about how you can get involved.

Volunteer information:

Participant Information:

We want to work with people with dementia and their carers, as individuals and as part of a group.

The project is currently contacting local care homes and dementia organisations to arrange group sessions and interviews with individual people. We want to collect memories and reminiscences which will be valuable for the participant and their families and friends, but it will also provide a resource for the wider community. We will be making a book of memories which will be used by people with dementia in group sessions at Walkley Carnegie Library in the future.

Please get in touch if you are interested in sharing your memories or taking part in a group session, which will involve an enjoyable activity such as a musical performance and a group discussion, followed by writing a poem together!