EARLIER this year, South Ockendon Community Forum (SOCF) was given nearly a thousand pounds of taxpayers money to fund a history project called “Ockendon Voices”.
The project aimed to record on film the experiences, anecdotes and memories of the people of Thurrock.
However, almost a year later, the project has failed to publish one single video or film.
Local councillors have also expressed dismay that as Thurrock Council celebrates Heritage Month, SOCF has “dragged its feet” on being able to join in on the celebrations.
A spokesperson for SOCF said: “The process of training people to use and record a camera takes a long time. We have trained a number of people and they were out at Party In The Park in July.
“We are unable to set a date as to when the films will be published.”
I don’t know all the ins and outs , don’t want to, don’t need to. Just wanted to say I visited an ancient scheduled monument in Thurrock on Sunday September 12th, and there was a volunteer using equipment from SOCF doing exactly the things mentioned above i.e capturing local folklore from local folk. I admit it was part of the English Heritage open days scheme run every year in September – don’t know if that counts as part of Thurrocks Heritage Month but as a resident, tax and rate payer I can witness having seen the equipment being used to good effect. As for local councillors being dismayed with the time lines involved, now you know how your constituents feel eh… I’m struggling to understand how earlier this year becomes almost a year on in council terms that’s no time at all!
Apologies for mentioning the “Gazette” on this site, but this week there is an advert asking to talk to people who lived or worked in the Stifford Road area of South Ockendon between 1940-1970. They want a better understanding of the history to the Marley Tile site, What a great opportunity for whoever to work with the SOCF and local history groups to capture those anecdotes for the Ockendon voices project? Not sure of my facts- happy to be corrected but wasn’t a lot of the housing in the area developed during the 1950’s/1960’s. Be interesting to know if the issues were pretty similar then and now?