Generations united in book of childhood memories

Entitled Voices from the Village of Youth, the work is the result of a collaboration between children at Cookridge Primary School in Leeds and older people who remember the area during the war and earlier.

The Leeds Council writing project was begun with the aim of bringing the generations together.

Members of the Older Persons Action in the Locality (Opal) charity wrote about what they recalled about their childhood or contributed a short story, real or fiction.

Holt Park Library librarian Kit Lardner, who edited the work, said: "This project has been a fantastic way of bringing local people together and has been so more successful than we could have imagined.

"This book is a real celebration of the creative talents of local people across the ages and it is hugely exciting that it can be seen like this."

The book uses archive photos of the area to support childhood reminiscences as well as poems, real and fictional stories and letters from Cookridge past and present.

The book's title is a reference to the marketing literature used in the late 1920s and early 1930s when the new Cookridge Village Estate was described as "Cookridge – Village of Youth".

The project was carried out to help strengthen community ties in the area by bringing the generations together, and received funding from the council's adult social care directorate to support the Leeds element of a national drive to improve inter-generational relations.

Voices from the Village of Youth was not intended for widespread sale but will be available to order through Holt Park Library or by going to www.lulu.com