Make A Difference Day is the UK’s biggest day of hands-on volunteering. In 2004 over 87,000 people took part in all sorts of volunteering activities. As part of Make A Difference Day, CSV NI took its media trainees out to the Silver Threads Club in Ballybeen, East Belfast.

At the club in St Mary’s church, the older people socialise and enjoy food delivered by Meals on Wheels. They spend their time playing indoor bowls and other games and the ladies knit clothing for good causes including the Children of Chernobyl.

The club was very enthusiastic about the CSV trainees coming to see them, to record their memories of living in Northern Ireland during World War II. Two of the clubs convenors advised the trainees on which members to talk to and allowed us to use some of the more private rooms, away from the club’s hustle and bustle, to make the recordings.

CSV Trainee Kai Holland with Gerry Potts from the Silver Threads project.

As well as providing invaluable experience in using the recording equipment and practising interview techniques, the trainees thoroughly enjoyed the company of the older people and found their stories to be interesting, amusing, and always illuminating of a time so long past as to be entirely foreign to them.

The elderly members of the Silver Threads group recounted their stories as if the war was only yesterday. From the horrors of the aftermath of the blitz to the adventure of cross border smuggling, the topics of discussion are varied and very colourful. Choose an article to read or a piece of audio to listen to, from the list below: