Memories of the Sea is a project led by the Down to the Coast landscape partnership scheme to gather people’s reminiscences of life on or near the sea over the decades.

In 2019 Down to the Coast worked with Carisbrooke Castle Museum (CCM) where Lisa Kerley and her band of volunteers captured the reminiscences of families in the East Wight who worked the sea to ensure that they are recorded for the benefit of current and future generations.

Lots of people and Island organisations were involved with creating this project. Isle of Wight photographer Julian Winslow shot the portraits.

IWC Heritage Service and Carisbrooke Castle Museum were very generous in sharing some of their fantastic collection of historic photos, as were the Classic Boat Museum; East Cowes Heritage Centre – Isle of Wight Society; Bembridge Heritage Centre, RNLI HQ, as well as the private collections of those interviewed.

The full oral history recordings and portraits were given to consultancy Meeja with the challenge of making the project as engaging and accessible as possible. They suggested cutting the full interviews into short 1-3 min snippets, tying these to themes and publishing them on a Website. Project lead, Peter Fellows, approved these proposals, nearly 300 audio snippets were produced, photographs were sourced, the Website built and filled with content.