Reminiscence

Reminiscence at the Castle 

Join us for our monthly free reminiscence sessions – come along, enjoy a cup of tea and share your memories.  

Older people share stories at a Reminiscence cafe session


New Gadgets or Old Gadgets: What’s Best?

  • Tuesday 16 April, 2-4pm
  • Free, all welcome. Refreshments included.
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hoover

Modern gadgets can be a bit of a challenge for some of us, for all their usefulness. Those we used in the past were often so much more simple and trustworthy. The telephone, firmly fixed to the wall so it was never lost and never ran out of charge like those all-singing, all-dancing mobiles.

They may be the favourite gadget today, but what favourites do you remember in the past? The Teasmaid, to wake you up and deliver a cup of tea at the same time? The radio or television, with just a simple range of programmes (and unreliable reception) bringing music and stories into the home for the first time? Or useful gadgets in the kitchen – the simple tin opener, the mincer that didn’t need complicated programming or even a pressure cooker. And unlike our modern gadgets, didn’t need constant replacing with apparent built-in obsolescence. Do you still have some of those old gadgets? What were your favourites – or what ones, perhaps, turned out to be more of a disaster, like some of today’s inventions?

Come along to the Museum and share your memories over a cup of tea.

For any queries, please email museum.services@haringey.gov.uk


Some Iconic Buildings 

  • Tuesday 14 May, 2-4pm
  • Free, all welcome. Refreshments included.
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1930 Cooperative Store Tottenham High Road

 

The history of our local communities can be read in our buildings, the different styles of architecture and the stories they tell. Some may still be with us, others vanished with changing fashions. The handsome Wood Green Empire and the Tottenham Palace are evidence of past entertainment pleasures – music hall, theatre, bingo and cinema. The 1930s Muswell Hill Odeon, on the other hand, with its beautiful Art Deco architecture, still survives.

Our changing shopping choices are also reflected in a changing High Street. The grand department stores – Burgess’s, the Co-op and Ward’s Stores – have given way to internet shopping and supermarkets. But the once-elegant Ward’s building still survives, reinventing itself with help from the local community. Civic life was represented by the old Town Halls and libraries – Hornsey and Tottenham Town Halls and the Wood Green Carnegie Library.

What building – past or present – would you single out, and what stories can you tell us?

Come along to the Museum and share your memories over a cup of tea.

For any queries, please email museum.services@haringey.gov.uk 


Our Local Railways 

  • Tuesday 18 June, 2-4pm
  • Free, all welcome. Refreshments included.
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Picture of harringay stadium overground now called harringay green lanes

 

22 June is Windrush Day, and Windrush has its own London Transport rail line to celebrate, recognising the contribution immigrants made to the country. It doesn’t go through Haringey, but we have our Weaver and Suffragette lines. Weaver, from Liverpool Street to Enfield/Cheshunt/Chingford, acknowledges the immigrant French silk weavers and the Jewish ‘rag trade’. It brought migrants from the East End to Tottenham and provided residents with the easiest route to the Essex seaside. The Suffragette line is that London transport rarity travelling east/west, giving us Barking and Essex one way, and places such as Camden and Hampstead Heath the other. Its name comes from a Barking suffragette who lived to over 100, but it could also refer to the number of suffragettes who lived in Haringey near that line, including the Spong sisters from Muswell Hill.

These lines have long given us opportunities to travel, even if not too far, and we surely have memories of places we have enjoyed.

Come to the Museum and share your memories over a cup of tea.

For any queries, please email museum.services@haringey.gov.uk  


Parks and Open Spaces

  • Tuesday 16 July, 2-4pm
  • Free, all welcome. Refreshments included.
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Fallow deer in Alexandra Park

 

Since the 19th century, Haringey’s fields and woods have been steadily covered in bricks and concrete. But through foresight and community action, some green spaces have survived. Tottenham Marshes to the east and Highgate Woods to the west edge a borough with parks, greens, allotments and commons poking holes in our urban jungle. Today, children play in the parks, walkers patrol the larger areas, with runners and cyclists weaving round them, football and tennis players find their places and for fitness there are the outdoor gyms.

These remnants of our fields and gardens are a cause for celebration, whether they are the preserved remains of former gardens, the last vestiges of common land or even the specially created areas from former slum housing. As children, we would have taken them for granted, but nevertheless they gave us such pleasure, whether we played there independently or visited with family for a picnic and day out in the sun. Have you got any memories or pictures of one of our green spaces?

Come to the Museum and share your memories over a cup of tea.

For any queries, please email museum.services@haringey.gov.uk