The Memory Store Challenge

If your class or group is working on a local history project, then we would love to hear about it!

The project must include some reference to this site and include research into retailing in your area. We would be especially pleased if you included a Waitrose or John Lewis store if there is one in your area – but it’s not vital that you do.

The sort of project we would like to hear about could include:

• How working lives have changed in our area
• How families have changed their shopping habits over the last 100 years
• The importance of shops and shopping to the lives of people in our area
• Changes bought about by the First and Second World Wars
• Oral histories of the people who lived and worked in our shops, and are now retired

Of course you don’t have to follow these ideas, we expect you have plenty of your own.

We would also like to hear any suggestions you might have to make the Memory Store even more interesting.

If you would like to enter the Challenge please ask your teachers to email The Memory Store (memorystore@johnlewis.co.uk) with a brief explanation and a description of how the work meets your educational objectives.

We will then contact you to invite you to enter the Challenge or suggest ways in which your project could broaden to include The Memory Store.

Your project could be featured on the site displaying the work you have produced for everyone to see.

The Archivist can also arrange to visit your school to talk about changes in retailing and show some of the artefacts collected by the John Lewis Partnership archive over the years.