How the HerStory of Rye came into being:

The HerStory of Rye began in the midst of the global pandemic in 2021 when local photographer Susan Benn and Rye’s Mayor Rebekah Gilbert produced a 2022 calendar to celebrate women working in Rye in the 2020s. The successful sale of this calendar supported Rebekah’s Mayoral charities and encouraged interest in further developing an oral history archive based on stories of the working lives of the eighty women photographed.

Susan approached the writer and oral historian Bronwen Griffiths, who had previously worked on a book of oral histories on women’s work. A decision was made to apply for enough funding to commission an archival website, to record fifty oral histories in its first year and to produce an exhibition of the women’s portraits in the Rye Heritage Centre and in the streets of the town in summer 2023. Susan and Bronwen applied to the Heritage Lottery for a grant with support from the Rye Heritage Centre. The bid was successful and work began in the summer of 2022.

Nick Roberts was commissioned to create a bespoke website designed to make this unique archive easily available for students, researchers, local historians and interested visitors in Rye. In early 2023 Ali Casey became the third member of HerStory’s volunteer team to co-manage the production of the project to its launch in July 2023.

HerStory of Rye is launched on July 21st 2023:

By mid summer 2023 the HerStory team had interviewed over fifty local women, ranging in age from their twenties to their nineties, about their working lives in Rye and beyond.

Their stories reflect the rich diversity of roles, resourcefulness, skills, passions, empathy and generosity that these women contribute to our community in Rye.  Volunteer interviewers, including local women from the Rye area and students from Rye College, were given professional oral history training before going out into the field.

Local people and visitors to Rye in July and August 2023 see large AO and A2 sized portraits of the women appearing in town. People arriving at the Train station in Rye are greeted with portratits and a description of the HerStory archive. On the Heritage Centre Building in Stand Quay and in their upstairs exhibition space more portraits are on display with a clip of voices of some of the women who were interviewed.  All the portraits appearing on buildings and railings around the town have a QR codes on them offering immediate smart phone access to listen to their stories on this website.    

The Future of HerStory:

The Heritage Lottery funding comes to an end in July 2023 but the HerStory team continue to work on the website, to identify, record and photograph portraits of more women who work in and around Rye.  Gaps in the representatioin of health workers, due to covid restritions, need to be addressed and the development of the website is itself is a work in progress.

Lack of enough interviewers and time in the first year of the project has meant that all the women who first appeared on the 2022 calendar are included in the site but have not yet been interviewed. The team plan to be able to do that in their second year.

Volunteer interviewers of all ages are very welcome to become involved in developing HerStory in Rye. Training can be provided if needed and interested parties should please get in touch with either Ali, Susan or Bronwen, to find out what is involved. (See Details on the 'Getting Involved' page).

There will be interesting ways to expand of some people's stories over time. A HerStory feature column is being proposed for the online newspaper Rye News www.ryenews.org.uk as well as future podcasts focussed on women in this archive, to be heard in due course on www.ryecast.org.

All of us involved in creating this HerStory project are tremendously grateful to all the people who have given their time and enthuiasm to get the archive going and we look forward to discovering more pleasures and surprises in the months and years ahead.