Recovering the Present in Times Past A few sprightly couples glide around the dance floor to the strains of Roll Out The Barrel. Sepia-tinted photographs of men and women in uniform gaze down from the walls. Closing your eyes, it is just possible to imagine you have joined in some belated VE Day celebrations. More than half a century later, groups of elderly residents of a sheltered housing complex in Swaffham, Norfolk, are reliving wartime memories seated in armchairs. Alf Gower describes a hero's homecoming. 'It took us four days limping back to the Tyne with the tugs towing us in the last bit of the way. I got 14 days' survivor's leave and then I was recalled on my wedding day and sent to Dunkirk. I was on the last navy ship to leave. We sank a block ship full of cement in the entrance to the harbour to stop the Germans.' Getting people to unlock memories is proving therapeutic and a technique pioneered by Norfolk adult education service has been taken up enthusiastically by the social services department, and sheltered housing associations. Some might question the value of getting elderly people to re-live their past. But project workers testify to enormous benefits in giving them confidence and a sense of their own identity at a time in their lives when change is often seen as a threat. Project co-ordinator Margaret Plummer says, "We are having a positive impact in cases of dementia where people's short-term memory fails. Helping them access their long-term memory can be a lifeline to sanity. To them the past is often more real than the present." Reminiscence session organiser Sheila Hawks takes a half dozen battered boxes with her wherever she goes - in the boot of her car. Sitting out the tea dance, she opens a big wickerwork box in front of a group of elderly men and women. Out comes a collection of once familiar objects - collar studs, a button hook, ration cards, a bicycle pump, an old policeman's whistle. Sheila fishes out an old primus stove which many a person with arthritic finger joints has re-assembled to show their old dexterity has not entirely vanished. The memories these objects evoke can help build new relationships. She says, "I ran a session here on the war. We had one old gentleman who turned out to be a Spitfire pilot and we discovered one of the women worked in a factory making wings for the Spitfire. They had a lot in common." NAME: Norfolk LEA Living Memories Project BRIEF: To widen participation in lifelong learning for older people and their carers TARGET GROUP: Older learners and their carers FOCUS: To provide a regional focus for reminiscence activities and learning across generations GRANT: Major MANAGED BY: NIACE

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