Bewdley Museum: Exhibition to preserve stories of the floods

Living in Dog Lane, resident Penny Griffiths and her late husband David survived around 14 floods in 12 years. 

Ms Griffiths carefully collected newspaper clippings and news broadcasts from TV and radio over the years as well as countless photographs, which she decided to share with the team at Bewdley Museum. 

The staff agreed that the memories were too important to be lost, so they decided to put a call out to residents to share their own photographs and stories of the floods. 

Penny and David Griffiths in Dog Lane in 1998 (Image: Handout)

Ms Griffiths said: "I shared my photos and newspaper clippings with the team at Bewdley Museum as we had been discussing educational resources connected with the River Severn. 

"They agreed that these were too important a local memory to be lost especially as most of the photographs were taken before anyone had smartphones with cameras.

"Rather than let these memories be lost we decided to put a call out for people to send us their photographs or let us voice record their recollections whether from years ago or sadly in the more recent floods."

David Griffiths (Image: Handout)

Currents of the Past: Reflections of Bewdley Floods is an exhibition that has been organised by Ms Griffiths alongside Bewdley Museum's collections and interpretation officer Liz Cowley.  

The aim is to create an archive of memories for future generations with the exhibition taking place from 11am until 3pm from Saturday, August 10 to Sunday, August 18. 

The couple survived many years of flooding in the town (Image: Handout)

The exhibition is located in the Claypipes room on Museum Shambles walkway with residents urged to drop by and share their own photographs, video footage and artwork for the collection.

Volunteers will also be on hand to answer questions and talk about the project. 

The organisers hope to hold a larger exhibition next year to hopefully coincide with the instalment of the Beales Corner flood defences.