Weaving Ossett's History is a project led by Ossett and Gawthorpe Community Archive to collect and share yarns about the locality of Ossett and Gawthorpe, West Yorkshire. The yarns are contributed by local (and ex-pat) people of all ages in the areas of heritage which interest them.
How to get involved
If you have an interest in writing about any aspect of Ossett area history or you are inspired by Ossett heritage to create a piece of creative writing or art, we would love for you to share it as a Yarn as a part of the Weaving Ossett's History project. It can be as long or short, complex or simple as you like.
You can contact lead project partners Ossett Community Archive or Ossett Library to find out more or talk through your idea. We are hoping that through local schools and our partner organisations we can interest as many people as possible in remembering and appreciating Ossett heritage.
Project Partners so far include:
Ossett Library
Ossett and Gawthorpe Community Archive
Friends of Ossett Library
University of Leeds
Education Ossett Community Trust (EOCT)
Ossett Historical Society
Ossett Civic Trust
Building Ossett Better
Love Ossett
Ossett Town Partnership
Ossett Through The Ages (Facebook Network)
Ossett.net
Mike and I, first arrived in Ossett in 1959 when the town still had a railway station. Newly married, we moved into a new small bungalow on Spa Croft Road which was called Lynda Avenue in those days. In 1961 our firstborn arrived and we had a beautiful large carriage built pram for her - no folding buggies then. A trip to Wakefield to visit family therefore involved a journey on the train so I would push my pram up Manor Road and along Station Road to the railway station. A journey of possibly a mile. There was usually two or three of us with prams and when the train arrived, the guard would help each of us to lift the pram and baby into the guards-van and off we would go on the ten minute journey to Westgate Station in Wakefield. The return journey was a similar arrangement.
What sort of thing are you looking for?
Ideally we would like stories to fit in with one of the 8 categories below:
Civic Ossett - Law and order, civic pride, mayors
Leisure in Ossett - Pastimes, hobbies, sports
Places and buildings - Stories of streets, buildings, railways
Growing up in Ossett - Schools, education and the youth of Ossett
Poetry and stories - Short stories and poetry inspired by being an Ossettonian
People and memories - About Ossett people, personal stories of living in Ossett
Festivals and events - Happenings in Ossett, Coal carrying, Maypole, Beercart
Business and commerce - Things made in Ossett, local trades and businesses
Here are some examples so you can see how they could look when finished. You can see all of the stories which have been contributed on the 'Weaving Ossett's History' project page at http://yarncommunity.org/projects/3.
Above is the Ossett coat of arms showing the industries of Ossett. The motto " inutile utile ex arte" roughly translates as "The skill of making the useless, useful". Mungo and shoddy are the materials produced from the recycling of wool waste, hence Ossett's motto. Shoddy is a low grade cloth made from the by-products of wool pressing or from recycled wool. One of its main uses was in the manufacture of soldiers uniforms. It is made from the longer fibre material produced by the recycling process. Mungo is made from the short fibre material and is used to make felt, etc. The BBC video below about the shoddy industry seems to imply that the shoddy manufacturers were “get rich quick” merchants who were out to make large profits out of a poor quality product. This may be true in a very few cases but most were hard working people trying to make a living in difficult times. It is true that the quality of shoddy varied but whether the use of the word “shoddy” for inferior, poor quality things is justified I am not at all sure.
How can I make a yarn?
See these introductory videos about how the Yarn site works, its free to join and anyone can make a yarn to add to the project. When you have your yarn ready to publish, drop us a line at the Library or Community archive and we will link it to the categories below for you.
First of all, the material you want to use will need to be in a digital format, so that you can look at it on a computer. For instance, if you have a printed photograph or a document which you would like to digitise, you could either make a scan of it or you could take a photograph using a digital camera.
In addition to physical archives maintained by libraries and museums, the internet is a great source of content which can be easily added to Yarn stories. Here's a selection...
Where can I find information to make my story?
There are a huge number of free resources you can use to learn more about Ossett's history and be inspired to tell us a story, The following list is full of great online starting points to find a bit of Ossett History...
...There are also a number of local places you can visit to research, Wakefield Libraries, Wakefield Museums and the West Yorkshire Archives service to name a few.