A group of Camberwell children are putting on a play that will bring the memories and old stories of local pensioners to life on stage, as part of celebrations of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
The children, aged between five and fourteen, asked people at the Southwark Pensioners Centre in Camberwell and Elim House in Peckham about their memories from when they were young, and how the area has changed in the decades since the 1950s.
The group of roughly twenty kids then used these stories as the basis for a play script, with the help of local theatre company Shedlight Stories, who organised the whole initiative. Southwark Stories: 1952, performed mostly by professional actors, will go on for free this Saturday afternoon (June 4) at St Giles’ Parish Hall in Camberwell.
Nell Thomas, who runs Shedlight Stories, said it was “a privilege to tell stories that don’t often get told.”
Topics that went into the play include people’s memories of the Queen’s coronation in 1953, and stories about coming to the UK after the war, particularly from the Caribbean.
Nell said one of the children asked an elderly woman with dementia about her best friend. “As soon as she heard that, her face absolutely lit up.”
Some of the people the kids spoke to were part of the Windrush generation that came over from the Caribbean after the Second World War, and those people brought up sometimes funny, sometimes difficult memories of the culture shock of arriving in the UK, Nell said. Some recalled being given a pamphlet in Barbados warning about tasteless British food. Others remembered being at school in Jamaica during the coronation and being told to wave Union flags. “We do touch on finding Britain hard, but that isn’t at all the main focus,” Nell added.
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“The kids are just mostly interested in people as people,” she said. “And I think the older people found it really lovely to chat to the younger people, they don’t get an opportunity to do so much.”
Some of the pensioners will hopefully be coming to the performance. Although the children, who are part of Spring Community Hub, will not be acting the main parts, they will be appearing in some crowd scenes, like during the coronation. The play itself will run for about 40 minutes, but there will also be performances from other local groups.
Doors open at 2.45pm. The performances start at 3.15pm. The event ends at 6pm.
Address: St Giles’ Parish Hall, 161 Benhill Rd, London SE5 7RJ
Click here to book your free ticket.
Other platinum jubilee events in southwark to go to:
Music, dance, food and drink at free Borough jubilee festival next weekend
Peckham’s Elim House putting on day of free events for Jubilee
See Camberwell’s most regal pooch at free Jubilee street party this Saturday