Sutton Grapevine
Stories about Sutton-in-the-Isle, Cambridgeshire, UKArchive for Activities
What does Sutton smell like?
Some of the questions we put to the Triangle Club last week and their answers
‘What does Sutton smell like?’ was one of the questions we put to the Triangle Club when we saw them last week. Smell is an often overlooked sense, yet an extremely powerful memory trigger – when I visited Japan last year I was aware of how different it smelt to London, and now I only have to walk past a noodle bar to be whisked back in my mind to the narrow alleys of Shinjuku. Closer to home, a combination of industrial cleaning products and over-cooked vegetables can take me back to school in seconds.
Does the smell of a place change over time as lifestyles change and technologies come and go? What did Sutton smell like when there was less traffic and more people worked on the land? What will it smell like in the future if the village expands?
To one member of the Triangle Club Sutton smelt of chickens, from the chicken farm near the Brook. To me, arriving in the village direct from London, Sutton smells of clean air (unless an HGV is thundering past..), fresh leaves and flowers of spring, with a dash of cooking.
But what do you think? What smells remind you of Sutton?
Monday Evening at The Glebe
Alice and I had a great session with the Your Stories Youth Group on Monday evening. We spent the evening talking about what was in Sutton, Mepal and surrounding areas and what they would like to see there. Using a large-scale map and post-it notes, plasticine, wool, felt, sticks and paper we made some playful models for the map. You can hear some of the discussion here.
Some suggestions included: astro-turf football pitch, free running park, music venue, night club for dancing, cafe, giant trampoline, train, sunshine, field full of sheep and a giant lollypop.
Sutton Grapevine at the Babylon Gallery
We stopped at the Babylon Gallery in Ely last Tuesday on our way to Sutton. We set up to start collecting visitors’ stories for Sutton Grapevine and the surrounding Fenlands. So if you are in Ely, pop into the Gallery, enjoy the artwork and share some of your Fenland memories with us. You can write or draw your stories and pin them down on the map, or record them, just ask one of the Gallery staff.
A Visit to the Triangle Club
Last week was my second trip to Sutton with Proboscis..It was exciting as I’ve been for sometime now, listening to audio stories from people who live there, but didn’t really get the chance to talk to anyone myself. And so my mind was creating all these images of the stories and characters I’ve been listening to and reading about.
Karen and I spent some time at the Triangle Club that afternoon, talking to the lovely group of people who met there every Tuesday. They mapped down their memories of Sutton, telling us about stories of people, spaces and events that marked their lives in that town..I’ve also met Robin, who told me his stories of Sutton-in-the-Isle, the black Oaks, the Balls Club in Ely, Whiskey, and the time he spent in Egypt, Southern Sahara, South Africa and Austria as a soldier! It was great listening to him..
I’ve added a few pictures of the map we had at the Triangle Club, and more pictures on the two days when I visited on flickr.
Thanks for reading..
Dia
Youth Group stories
Yesterday Orlagh and I went to Sutton to spend time with the Your Stories Youth Group and find out more about Sutton from their perspective. Together we mapped what is in Sutton now and what people might like to see in Sutton in the future and built a map of paper, felt, string and modeling clay to imagine it. Soon we’ll be posting some of the recordings of the evenings ideas and stories. It was a great evening, everyone was very friendly and welcoming, so we are really looking forward to working more with the group in June on recording and filming about life in Sutton. 
