Finding history on your doorstep

Tom Maloney

What do you see when you step out of your front door? For most people it would not be out of the ordinary, perhaps a garden, a play area, a path or a road, perhaps even a busy road.

For the pupils of St Woolos Primary School, high up on Stow Hill, Newport, they have found that stepping out from their front door was an opportunity to step back in time, there was so much history that you could write a book … and that’s just what they have done.

The book came about because of a ‘Cynefin’ Project linked with the school’s 120th anniversary and just grew. Well in reality, it snowballed, involving close on 100 pupils in three classes.

‘Cynefin’ is one of the beautiful Welsh words that has so direct translation into English, but you could say it is about place and what it means to us and about belonging.

Newport is of course a bustling city now, but it wasn’t always that way. Understanding that it grew because of the Industrial Revolution was an important starting point.

Enthusiasm

Alison Huang, aged 10, put into words the enthusiasm and joy that everyone felt, “I was amazed there were so many interesting facts. We made drawings and watercolours of the Chartists, learned about the sad story of the mud crawlers, and found out about buildings from Victorian times.”

As an artist working with the pupils, I was humbled and excited about their expressive ideas as the project progressed. It was clear from their artwork that they were expressing their feelings about what had happened in the past as well.

This was so clearly abundant in their response to the story of the mud crawlers, which sadly still echoes in the world today.

In this tragedy, the end of a sea passage journey to escape the poverty of Ireland was the deep, muddy banks of the River Usk from where the impoverished refugees had to crawl their way to safety. Their hardships did not end there, on reaching the shoreline they faced a weary trudge up Stow Hill to the workhouse.

A strong thread of right and wrong was sewn into the fabric of their written work as well, nowhere more so than in their study of the Chartist March on Newport, which took place on their hill so many years ago in 1839 and which inspired dynamic, heartfelt poetry, as so ably demonstrated in the lines composed by Lily Tutton and Ines Le Car:

It’s a Trap

Chartist marching down Stow Hill

Calling for a vote

And Government Bill

Angry voices shout for justice

They raise their banners high

Frustration rises into the air

Outside the Westgate they stand

For a helping hand

Betrayal suddenly hit them

Their faces were now different

Bang, bang the trigger was pulled!

Confusion, Chaos, Carnage!

The gravel was covered in deep, red blood

Bodies were led, and definitely dead

Screams of horror filled the town.

Every time I read this poem it conjures such images in my mind, there is so much power in its verse.

Seeing the book in print was a special moment for everyone involved. Although we live in the digital age there is still nothing quite like a seeing your work printed in a book and then having all the excitement of a book launch at the city library. Omar Tamer puts it so well:

“Newport Library opened especially for us to launch our proud moment, our book ‘Newport, The March of Time’. I’m proud to be recognised and be a part of a great project, making what began as a small idea become a dream come true.”