Anecdotes recalling how life used to be become more precious as we grow older.

Social changes have placed more importance on remembering how things were and realising how fortunate we are now.

Living hand-to-mouth through the war years and experiencing first-hand what rationing was really like created a generation brought up to make do and mend. Things are very different these days, which makes it all the more important that young people learn about how past generations lived.

Through the oral history project My Place, local people can reminisce about their childhood – their voices are then played to children in schools in Bradford and Keighley who can learn what life was like in the past from those who lived through it.

Delivered by West Yorkshire Joint Services, in partnership with Bradford Council, the two-year project which concludes this year, is supported by funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and has so far provided more than 1,000 educational heritage sessions for youngsters in Keighley and Bradford.

The My Place initiative focuses on the local heritage of neighbourhoods and the people, places and memories that make up the richness of those communities.

As well as reminiscence groups, the project also involves youngsters through school activity workshops; community volunteer participation; archaeology excavations and site activities.

Bradford People’s Centre is among the organisations who are participating in the project and memories have been collected at their drop-in events at Culture Fusion in Thornton Road over the past few weeks. The next session is tomorrow, 11am until 3pm.

Other groups and organisations which have been involved in the reminiscence sessions include Keighley Library; Italian Citizens of the Third Age, based in Keighley, and Age UK.

“It’s all stories about childhood, things like the First and Second World Wars, mill work, and getting married – beautiful reminiscences of life,” says My Place heritage education officer Hayley McCarthy.

“Obviously with young people we are using it as an educational tool so collecting these stories and putting them into our resources so that these stories are getting heard. It is a nice medium to be able to have young people identify with, rather than a written document, and oral history is a way of getting that voice of the story heard.”

She talks of Bradford’s mill heritage and migration and also how people re-lived the moment bombs dropped during the Second World War.

“It is telling us about progression in history and educating our young people,” says Hayley.

“It’s documenting a poignant moment in people’s past.”

Hayley explains that recorded memories are uploaded on to Youtube so they can be streamed into classrooms when taken into schools. They also receive memories in written form with images too which they have been able to put online.

Those who have participated in the reminiscences can also receive a recording of their memories. “It isn’t edited, it is what they have said to us so they can share it with their families, their story. It is keeping that current memory present.” says Hayley.

“We aim to get young people to love where they live. They will pass on their grandparents’ stories – it is about holding that legacy and loving where they live.”

For more information about the My Place project, visit facebook.com/My-Place-West-Yorkshire, or follow @MyPlaceWY on Twitter.