The collecting and recording of the oral histories in August/September 2009 was a busy, friendly and happily noisy affair. After a training session with the Living Memory Association of Edinburgh, the young interviewers and the older interviewees gathered in the Heritage Rooms in Dunipace with digital recorders, photo albums, memorabilia, tea and biscuits…clustered into this corner and that. There was much laughter and also moments of serious contemplation.

We hope to give you a flavour of what those afternoons were like, by randomly assembling historic photos, portraits of the participants, remarks from the children and quotes from the elders’ transcripts. A bit like a noisy, friendly Heritage Room gathering!

The Denny & Dunipace Heritage Society now have the interviews in audio and transcribed form, for posterity.

“I found it fascinating to see how the wages and all the employees’ details were hand written in big books. . .It must have been so difficult in the days before computers.”

Sometimes we ran out of questions, but when they told us things we could think of more questions to ask.”

“I learned that a penny could buy you loads of things.”

“They always had lots of paper cuts on their hands because they were counting the sheets of paper.”

“It was good to listen to people instead of looking it up on the computer.”

“We asked the about their jobs, their friendships and their lifestyles _ For fun they went swimming, dancing and went to the cinema.”