FOLLOWING the success of this year’s Crediton Literary Festival as an online event, Crediton Library will be moving its normally popular Local History Day online this Wednesday, July 1, with a programme of interactive free talks.

At 10am, local historian John Heal will be speaking on "Lost Crediton".

John’s talk will be illustrated with photographs of those buildings in the town which have been lost or significantly changed over time.

Following this, at 11.30am, food historian from the University of Exeter Dr Paul Cleave, will present "Dried Eggs and Victory Gingerbread".

This talk examines food and rationing during the Second World War. Period recipes and cookery books will be used to demonstrate how cooks were able to produce interesting meals with the shortages of supplies during the war.

Both of these talks will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end. In the afternoon, two more sessions will focus more heavily on the chance to talk about local history and resources.

Mark Norman, Library Assistant at Crediton Library, will be chairing a session at 1pm looking at local history in the library.

Even with the difficulties of the country going into lockdown there have been some chances for change and development. Working from home, Mark has had the opportunity to put plans into place to look at what is on offer at Crediton Library and how some of it can be delivered digitally to be accessed remotely.

In this session, Mark hopes that people will join to hear some of the ideas being developed, and then discuss what else can be done to make best use of the resources available in Crediton Library.

Rounding the day off at 2.30pm is the session "Ask Devon Archives".

Brian Carpenter from South West Heritage Trust, based in the Devon Archives at Great Moor House in Exeter, will offer some thoughts on the day’s talks and highlight some of the resources in the archives which complement them. You will also have plenty of opportunity to ask questions about the services and resources at the Devon Archives.

To book for any or all of these free sessions, which will be delivered via the Zoom platform, please email the library at: [email protected] and explain which talks you would like to attend. You will be sent the details to log on and listen.

For full details of events and activities available at Crediton Library please visit: https://www.devonlibraries.org.uk/web/arena/creditonlibrary .

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