A Merry Christmas from Our Stories

First of all a big thank you to Maple Walk School’s headteacher Sarah Gillam, reception teachers Mrs Brooksbank and Ms Dancey as well as Francoise Romand and last but not least parent Jo Dymond for making another Our Stories project happen. It’s always wonderful to see what we can achieve when everyone pulls together and I want to thank everyone, including the parents and grandparents, for being so forthcoming with their stories and photographs. We have at the same time also managed to raise £50 for CHILDREN IN NEED through the book sale, which is absolutely fantastic!

Putting the book together was once again a reminder of the richness of each single child’s background and how London, especially, is the most incredible melting pot of ethnicities and histories. There were stories from as far away as India, Australia, America, Kenya, Poland, China, Morocco, Iran and New Zealand. As with the children who have partaken in the Our Stories project previously, these Maple Walk grandparents and great grandparents represent a whole spectrum of human endeavour from those who had to flee war or persecution and came to England to start new lives to those who bravely defended their country and some of whom were even rewarded with the highest honours. There were fascinating encounters with such varied subjects as a rock star, a king and a deadly poisonous snake. And last but certainly not least there were some wonderful insights into how different the lives of those grandparents or great grand parents were from that of their grand- and great grandchildren. Great stuff!