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This is where you will find latest news and information on the project.
Tickets were sold out well in advance for the latest screening of Brewing Stories which took place at Wandsworth Town Library on Thursday November 14th. The film went down very well with the packed audience and we were lucky to have four of the people interviewed who worked at the local Youngs Brewery along to answer questions from the audience. There was a very good discussion and it’s a shame we had to end the event at 8pm! Adam Duncan, the new archivist at Wandsworth Local Studies, also gave a talk about his work with the new Youngs archive which has been donated to Local Studies and how the public can access those fascinating records of the brewery.
Archivist, Adam Duncan, addresses the audience
The Q&AWe were very saddened to hear of the passing of our good friend Bob Hall. Bob volunteered on our Eel Pie Island oral history project, but as a long-term islander himself, who regaled us with many interesting and funny stories during the project we insisted he be interviewed too. You can find his interview here.
We kept in touch with Bob and were pleased when he accepted our request that he take part in our Brewing Stories project. As by now, a seasoned interviewer, he was able to support other volunteers in the project and his dedication, support and humility helped make the project a success.
Always keen to find out what our volunteers would like to do next, Bob piped up with 'Brentford Football Club'. As a life-long Halifax Town fan, Bob had a soft spot for his local club and recognised that its friendly, community-focused reputation is worth preserving. We dedicate that project to Bob's memory.
A screening took place at the Ram Brewery to 40 people made up of project volunteers, interviewees and invited guests. The event was organised by John Hatch in the converted bar in the old stables at the Ram Brewery, where he continues to brew on-site.
It was a fabulous evening with a very interetsing formal Q&A after the screening and lots of beer and chat into the evening. Digital:works are always pleased to hear that their work is appreciated and that volunteers and interviewees feel they are gaining from working with us.
The next public screening is:
Thursday 14th November 2019, 6:30pm
Wandsworth Archives,
Battersea Library, 265 Lavender Hill, London SW11 1JB
The event will be hosted by the film-makers and brewery workers will be in attendance to lead a discussion on the themes that arise from the film.
Our host John Hatch pulling a pint of Brewing Stories
The Q&AOn September 12th we had a screening of the film at Richmond Library. We introduced the film to a busy room and followed with a Q&A in which we took questions from the audience aided by Iain Dark who was interviewed for the project and worked at Mortlake Brewery. Thank you to Richmond Local Studies for hosting this event.
The next Screening will be Monday 14th November 2019 at Wandsworth Library on Lavender Hill. More details to come shortly.
The film can now be viewed on this site here.
Our first ever public screening of the film took place on the hottest day of the year at Chiswick Library and a big thank you to the 20 or so people that braved the weather!
Thank you to Christine Hooper, interviewee and long-term Fuller's worker, who answered the audiences' questions after the screening.
The next public screening is
Thursday 12th September 2019, 2:30pm
Richmond Library Annexe,
Quadrant Road, Richmond TW9 1DH
A public screening of Brewing Stories. The event will be hosted by the film-makers and brewery workers will be in attendance to lead a discussion on the themes that arise from the film.
A big thank you to everyone that came along for the launch screening of Brewing Stories at the Hock Cellar of the Griffin Brewery. We are indebted to our hosts at Fullers, not only for the evening but throughout the project. It was lovely to see all the project volunteers and the interviewees again alongside guests who all said they enjoyed the evening and the final version of the film.
The film can now be viewed on this site here.
Project volunteer, Ioana, introducing the project
Thank yous and next steps
Before the screening
Screening of the film
Cheers!Saturday 20th July 2019, 9pm
Together TV
The first national broadcast of the film on Together TV [Freeview 89 | Sky 194 | Virgin Media 269 | Freesat 164]
Further dates:
Sunday 21st July 2019, 22:15
Monday 22nd July 2019, 1:15
Saturday 27th July 2019, 22:15
Sunday 28th July 2019, 21:00
Saturday 3rd August 2019, 22:15
Sunday 25th August 2019, 22:15
Thursday 12th September 2019, 2:30pm
Richmond Library Annexe,
Quadrant Road, Richmond TW9 1DH
A public screening of Brewing Stories. The event will be hosted by the film-makers and brewery workers will be in attendance to lead a discussion on the themes that arise from the film.
A rough edit of the film was shown to the team today and an important feedback session took place. Some suggestions were to have a more gentle start to the film; to have some introductory text to set the context; to take a few short breaks away from the talking heads - especially in the work section - which would have the added benefit of dividing the different work areas more obviously and to end on a slightly more positive note.
These and many more suggestions will be put into action for the final edit.
A big thank you to the Mole's for looking after us so well in Goring by Sea and sharing their stories. Father and son were both in the brewing trade, Roy started at the Mortlake Brewery in 1940 as a 15 year-old and son, Simon, worked at Mortlake from 1978 until moving to Fuller's in 1995.
Roy's wife, Elizabeth, kept the team fed and watered throughout and we are now privy to the recipe for her boiled fruit cake (and yes, we may have tried some too!)
The team with the Moles: Bob, Simon, Roy and Ioana.As well as the team identifying images from the local archives and interviewees bringing in their personal photos that we can use in the film, we spent a day at the Griffin Brewery collecting cutaways of the site.
Meter
Discontinued equipment
Unloading the empties
The bottling plantA glorious day and more interviews with former Young's employees. Throughout the project we have found that many brewery workers would spend their whole careers with just one brewery and this seems to be particularly true of Fuller's and Young's employees. Today we interviewed some people who came to Young's after spending much of their career elsewhere and it's clear that their time at Young's was very special. Derek Prentice began his career at Trumans in Brick Lane in the 1960s when beer production was still very much done in the old ways. It's a fascianting and evocative story and well worth having a listen to the whole interview on the interviews page when it goes up.
We also had the opportunity to run a reminiscence session with the workers in the sunny stable yard. The team were asking questions of the former workers and getting into some deep conversations. And there was beer on tap to oil the vocal chords, of course!
Reminiscing in the sunny stable yardMore interviews took place at the Griffin Brewery today but this time one of them was a historian, Martyn Cornell. Martyn styles himself as a Beer Historian and conducted a workshop on the history of the west London breweries for the team at the beginning of the project. The team developed a series of question for Martyn to help get the context of the local breweries, how they grew and why they were so successful in the area. It's a fascianting story, well told and you can listen to it on the interviews page.
With more interviews taking place at the Griffin Brewery, some of our interviewees brought some photos along for us to see and make copies to use in the film. Here is a small selection of those brought along by Brendan Bray who started out at Fuller's as a Brewing Room Boy and stayed for 48 years!
Brendan as a young man
Fuller's staff on an outing
Prince Charles on a visit in 1995
Part of the brewing process
Bob Ball, former Transport Manager being recorded in the Stables.Brewing at Young's continues to this day on a small scale with John Hatch running proceedings. We were grateful for him taking time out to talk to us and allow us to use the stables - the listed and last remaining part of the Ram Brewery - to interview him and other former Young's workers.
Ken Don, former Head BrewerMore interviews have taken place at the Griffin Brewery.
David and Maureen Barney with the team
Interview with David Barney
Miranda recording sound during Ashley Cherrett's interview
Ioana conducting the interview
Bob explaining the interview process to the interviewee
Celia conducts the sound recordingThe volunteers conducted their first interviews today at the Griffin Brewery.
Our interviewee, William, being filmedA packed day in the Tun Room at the Griffin Brewery began with a look at 'What is Oral History?' We looked at the benefits and challenges of oral history collection and uses, at how our own preconceptions can cloud our own responses. We then moved on to look at ethical considerations in the collection and use of people's reminiscences.
This was followed by learning interviewing skills and techniques to elicit the best interviews possible and then got hands-on with the recording equipment.
We discussed the themes we wanted to cover in the interviews as a group then split up into smaller groups to develop them. We came back as a group to develop them even further.
We concluded the day with further practice of interviewing and using the recorders together.
The team discussing Oral History
The team developing the questions.
Researching at Chiswick Archives
Janine introducing the collection at RichmondThe volunteers have spent the week at three local history borough archives to research material on the three breweries. They started off at Wandsworth Heritage Services with Emma Anthony, who has just recently inherited the Young's collection and this was the first time the material has been shown to the public.
On the second vist they went to Richmond Local Studies library to look at their collection relating to the Stag Brewery in Mortlake. There was a beautiful, hand coloured plan of the brewery but the star of the collection was the old Watney's Red Barrel in-house magazine.
The final visit was to Chiswick Local Studies to look at their collection relating to Fuller's Griffin brewery. There was some fabulous material here too and of particular interest was the old Isleworth Brewery, which for many years, until its closure in the 1950s acted as Watney's bottling plant.
Martyn Cornell, beer historian, gave the team a specially designed workshop looking at the history of the three breweries we are studying entitled: Ales from the Riverbank - which elicited a chuckle from those old enough to understand the reference!
The workshop was very informative and Martyn took questions from the group which added to everyone's knowledge.
The group was also treated to the very entertaining reminiscences of Chris Hooper who began working at Fuller's in 1975 and is still there today. She told us of how family-orientated the staff were with often three generations of a family working there at any one time! She believes this was mainly due to all the staff being local people from Chiswick and only when rents and property prices started to price working people out of the area did things begin to change.
The group were again able to ask Chris their own questions and the whole day was an excellent learning experience.
Martyn Cornell, Beer Historian
Chris Hooper, Fuller's Worker since 1975
The team
Colin leads the tourWe had a lovely day hosted by Fuller's at the Griffin Brewery in Chiswick to launch the project. The project volunteers met in the Tun Room where digital:works staff introduced the project, the timetable and outcomes the project is aiming for. It was made clear that the project is a social history of brewery workers, in their own words and not a history of brewing!
The volunteers introduced themselves to each other and talked about how they got to hear about the project and what they wanted to get out of it.
We were then met by Colin, who was to be our tour guide for the rest of the morning, and took us on the tour of Griffin Brewery site which ending with a well-earned tasting session in the hock cellar.
We are looking for 16 volunteers to get involved in this exciting new project which will record and preserve the working lives of London’s brewery workers. With funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Unite, this project will explore this important part of London’s history. You will receive training and support to conduct oral history interviews with old and retired workers from three major London breweries, The Ram in Wandsworth, The Stag in Mortlake, and The Griffin in Chiswick. These were major employers along the Thames and all but the Griffin are now closed. You will form part of a team supported by digital:works to go on to meet and record interviews with various older and retired workers from the three breweries. These will include a full range of workers, many who worked at the breweries for decades, and many with long family histories working in the industry. They will include master brewers, draymen, coopers, smellers, people in bottling plants and more.
We will be working with local archives in Richmond, Wandsworth and Chiswick as well as accessing the archives of Watney's, Young's and Fuller's.
These recordings will be given to local archives and Digital-works will be filming the interviews to make an oral history based documentary that will be shared widely, online, on TV, and at community history groups across the UK.
Some volunteer expenses will be covered.
Find out more about the project and history here.
Places are limited so please contact us asap to find out more and book your place.
Matthew Rosenberg: mat@digital-works.co.uk or 07949 107 023
digital:works have been running oral history projects across London that connect Londoners new and old with the history of the city. We provide high quality and fun training to all volunteers. To find out more about us please visit our website at: www.digital-works.co.uk
