Ryde Social Heritage Group research the social history of the citizens of Ryde, Isle of Wight. Documenting their lives, businesses and burial transcriptions.
RYDE SOCIAL HERITAGE GROUP
Based at Ryde Cemetery Heritage & Learning Centre. Preserving, documenting and promoting the social history of Ryde on the Isle of Wight.
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HALLOWEEN BIG DRAW

Halloween Corner
Halloween Corner

On Saturday 30 October we held a Big Draw event in the Heritage & Learning Centre of Ryde Cemetery. Being close to Halloween we decided to have that as our theme and decorated one corner of the Centre appropriately with bats, cats, spiders’ webs, pumpkins and even a friendly skeleton.

The Big Draw is sponsored by the Campaign for Drawing and is an annual, national event for the whole month every October. The principle behind The Big Draw is to encourage everyone to draw, even those who say “I can’t draw”.

We had 40 visitors during the day including many children and even our local MP dropped by and contributed to our Big Drawing of Ryde. We had lots of drawing paper, pens, pencils and crayons, colouring sheets and clip boards available for participants. Treats were available for everyone who participated in the event and we managed to recruit a new member to the group.

As Saturday was so successful we decided to open again for the whole day on Sunday and, despite the rain, we had another 20 visitors that day.

We had lots of excellent contributions to our Big drawings: One is made up of eight panels and is an interpretation of Ryde and one is made up of four panels and is an interpretation of Ryde Cemetery.

We also relocated our “Living Memories” exhibition which had been in Ryde Library for the whole of October to the South Chapel and installed a new exhibition with a Remembrance theme to complement the display on the Cemetery Heritage Trail that has been on display since the opening of the Centre in September.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission also has a small display about its work and a DVD for visitors to view.