TRANSITion: from fields to Ford and beyond

Taking the Floor at Ford: In Conversation with Debbie Bacon and Lolly Gresty, former employees at Ford Transit Assembly Plant, Southampton, 23 October 2017. [This event was part of the SO: To Speak Festival] “ I feel I’ve been very fortunate to have been brought up in a time when girls were allowed to do whatever they wanted basically.   Just tap on the right door and make sure they let you in. And not give up .” [Debbie] And she didn’t give up – not when she and her friends at school had to fight to be allowed to study technical drawing usually only offered to boys; not when Factories Act rules placed restrictions during her apprenticeship at Ford Dagenham; nor when she was faced with resentful male colleagues on becoming their supervisor. It was this resilience and determination that helped Debbie and other women like her to succeed in male-dominated workplaces in manufacturing and engineering. These stories were the focus of our discussion at the packed-out event at

FREE L A NCE BRIEF: Exhibition Design Consultant to provide training   The Heritage Lottery funded project Transition from fields to Ford and beyond is seeking a F reelance E xhibition D esign C onsultant to provide two sessions of training to a team of volunteer curators who se task is to support professionals in designing and curating a pop-up museum exploring the changing uses of the former Ford site in Swaythling , Southampton.   The temporary museum will be displayed in two cargo containers at the former Ford site in Swaythling , Southampton (subject to final agreement) . Content for the exhibition will be researched, collated and curated by the volunteer curation team with guidance from the professional steering team made up of a partnership of Now Heritage CIC, Cosmic Carrot and freelance oral historian Padmini Broomfield. The audio visual content will be produced by Cosmic Carrot.    The Design Consultant will deliver two 90-minut e training s