SWINDON Heritage may not have ignited as much support for heritage among the powers-that-be as its team hoped, but it has made a difference, writes BARRIE HUDSON.

“The thing I’m most proud of with Swindon Heritage,” said Graham Carter, “is that some people have said to us that it makes them proud of Swindon again, and I think that’s the saddest thing about not carrying on.

“Everybody knows Swindon has got an image problem. It’s outside the town. People think it’s a joke – through ignorance. But also a much bigger problem with that is its own self-pride.

“People don’t take pride in the town enough for themselves because they don’t see why they should. If they looked at their heritage they’d understand that actually Swindon has done some great things and there’s no reason why it can’t do great things again.

“Another aspect of that is that everybody has this perception of Swindon’s heritage being railways, Spitfires and all the other good things that have gone on, the fairly obvious things.

“But Swindon is such a melting pot of different cultures that everybody has got a different heritage. In the current edition of the magazine we have the story of a Polish lady who did amazing things. She was a refugee during the war, escaped and eventually came to Swindon.

“She’s got an incredible story to tell but there will be thousands of people like that in Swindon – they’ve all got their own story to tell.

“I heard that there are over 100 first languages spoken in Swindon and all of those people could tell you about their own heritage.

“To me, the main story of Swindon is all these people coming in. That’s why it’s grown so much, because people keep on coming.

“They’ve been coming for 176 years and they’ve all got stories to tell. They should all be proud of their own heritage and we should all share our heritage together.”

Graham, who grew up in Upper Stratton and attended Kingsdown School, said: “My father was a firefighter with the railway. Both of my grandfathers worked in the railway – one was a labourer, one was a boilermaker.

“My father-in-law worked in the railway, and in fact died of mesothelioma, and there are all kinds of uncles, great grandfathers and things who also worked on the railway.”

Graham’s career took a different path.

“I started working at the Adver in 1989. I’d worked for BT for eight years. There was a job as a listings writer on the paper, which was compiling a 'What’s On' page, basically.

“I managed to get that with no qualifications and no experience, and then as soon as I got in I volunteered to do any job going, like theatre reviews – all kinds of stuff. Before they realised, I was a journalist.”

As well as determination, he had a technological advantage.

“Luckily, there was a lot of new technology coming in and the old school didn’t have a clue," he said.

"Having worked for BT, who had all the latest stuff, it was like a step down to this industry. There were people who didn’t know how to hold a mouse.

“I was there from 1989 to 1998, with five years on the sports desk. I went freelance in ’98 and I was coming back so often to do supplements and things that nobody really noticed I’d left.”

One of those supplements was the Chronicle Of Swindon, a series which eventually ran to some 200 tabloid pages and told the story of the town from pre-history to the new millennium.

“I did A-level history and had two really good teachers who were quite inspirational,” Graham said.

“I got hooked on it. That was world and European history but I realised that there is a lot of interest in local history as well – and Swindon especially.

“Even if I didn’t come from Swindon, you can’t help but find Swindon’s history interesting because it’s so rich and so varied.”

A major interest is ‘Hammerman Poet’ Alfred Williams. Graham is co-founder and vice chair of the Alfred Williams Heritage Society and hopes one day to write a biography.

Graham insists history is not just the past but also the present and future – and that local government would do well to remember this.

“They don’t seem to have a plan,” he said. “They ride roughshod over really important stuff – issues like the Health Hydro, Lydiard, the Agricultural Museum.

“You just feel as though you’re banging your head against a brick wall, that you can’t change the attitudes of the people who make the decisions.”

He sees the state of the Mechanics' Institute as a barometer for the spirit of Swindon, something he refers to frequently. He believes it was built when the spirit was strong, and that its restoration will be a major step in restoring the spirit.

His definition of the spirit?

“If you look at what was achieved in Swindon, you could say in the past we could do anything," he said.

“We could make anything, we produced the first engine to do 100mph; we later produced a plane at Vickers that broke the world speed record; we made Spitfires.

“There has been all kinds of innovation. We helped to invent the National Health Service.

“All of these things we have achieved and yet it’s ‘only Swindon’ - but if we can achieve these things in a small town, just think what we could achieve in the future?

“I believe in the spirit of Swindon, that the people who built the Mechanics’, and the Medical Fund and all those things, nothing could stop them.

“If they could do that then, why can‘t we do it now? The only thing stopping us, is that we haven’t got the confidence and the pride in the town to think we can achieve it.

“We had the greatest railway the world has ever seen and that was because of Swindon, so there’s nothing we can’t do.”