Introduction
Communities Past & Futures Society (CP&FS) is a Scottish community research organisation; board members have a wealth of experience in delivering both community wellbeing and heritage projects and provide advice to other community organisations considering and/or conducting their own research and knowledge-dissemination projects, particularly in relation to community engagement and creating access to research findings and materials. We also have several social history reminiscence boxes, which we lease or lend out to community groups and project events, including those promoting mental health and social and cultural diversity.
In 2022, Communities Past & Futures Society was delighted to receive funding from National Lottery Heritage Fund and Seven Loch’s Wetland Park to deliver ‘Memories of Seven Lochs’ Communities: A People’s History’. This exciting heritage project is researching, capturing and disseminating the rich and diverse history of the communities located with the Seven Lochs area. In addition to mapping and fleshing out these histories, a professional historian trained our wonderful adult and young volunteers to record the memories of some of those people who lived in Seven Lochs since the interwar period. Other, equally wonderful volunteers, worked with our researcher to chart the communities’ experiences as the hamlets and villages grew and changed, particularly those communities which accommodated Glasgow’s overspill.
In addition to the written research, this unique website contains both audio and video interviews, and images from the many art and reminiscence project events that took place throughout 2023.
We are immensely grateful to everyone who has supported or participated in this project and hope that you enjoy reading, seeing, and listening to the results!