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Started in 2009, the Heritage Lottery-funded project 'Between the Locks' - an oral history of the working lives of the Thames river community bounded by the locks at Richmond and Teddington - has finished. The DVD is now available from the Trust office, and segments are on YouTube. The travelling exhibition, as featured in the Museum of Richmond and the Kew Steam Museum, can be borrowed and used for displays.

Twelve students from Christ’s School, Richmond were trained by the Oral History Society to interview and film elders of the river community who volunteered to share their memories of the tidal Thames. They then experienced and filmed some of the physical activities described, such as boatbuilding, rowing and lock keeping. The resulting exhibition, video and transcripts are now being shared with people of all ages.

Between the Locks video excerpts (please contact the Trust office for DVDs of the video)

The grant funding given by the Heritage Lottery Fund (£44,000) and Hampton Fuel Allotment Charity (£3,000) was spent on the salary of Project Officer Fiona Cosson, Oral History training and recording equipment, the services of an exhibition designer and video editor, and the production of the travelling exhibition.

Over 300 people participated in the events held as the project developed, and around 6,000 people have seen the exhibition at Orleans House Gallery, Thames Estuary Partnership’s Annual Forum, Age Concern Richmond, Christ’s School, Kew Bridge Steam Museum, Twickenham Library and Richmond Museum.

Thanks to everyone involved in the project and especially to the Heritage Lottery Fund and Hampton Fuel Allotment Charity.

The exhibition can be borrowed at no cost by any organisation that would like to show it. Contact the Environment Trust for sizes and logistics. Copies of the DVD are available too.

Bamber Gascoigne, the Trust’s patron who launched the project and chaired its milestone events said,” Lucky the students to be chosen for such a project! It gave them so many new opportunities. They were able to discover a sense of the past and of changes in society in two important ways: through talking to people, in two cases old enough to be their great-grandparents, who had lived through very different times in a place familiar to themselves: and through conventional methods of research in libraries and archives that must also have been new to them. And they learnt something essential to any career - how to apply themselves to a specific task and to carry it through to a deadline and a successful conclusion.The only sorrow is that shortage of funds must mean they remain the lucky exception. How excellent it will be if the initiative is picked up, developed and funded in other areas with an equivalently rich and varied local history.”