AN EXCITING new project that looks back on the life of a Swindon resident in the 20th century has been given a much-needed financial boost by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Swindon Heritage has been awarded the £9,700 grant for the project called Swindon Life 1899 to 1984: Jack Dixon and Family.

The publishers of the quarterly local history magazine will be working closely with staff from the Central Library’s Local Studies collection and Mike Attwell, who has recently donated more than 7,000 documents, photographs and ephemera relating to his Swindon family.

Called the Dixon-Attwell Collection, it will provide an extensive record of the everyday life of Mike’s grandfather, Jack Dixon, who lived in Swindon all his life, and includes other items from other generations of the family.

Swindon Heritage editor Graham Carter said: “We are delighted to be awarded this grant because it will help us throw a spotlight on this amazing collection, which provides a mine of information about the times that this ‘ordinary’ Swindon man lived through.

"It seems that Jack Dixon never threw anything away.

“There is so much in the collection that we felt it was important to draw attention to it and bring it to life, and the grant, which is part of the HLF’s Sharing Heritage programme, will enable us to produce a book about the collection, plus resource packs for local schools and other organisations.”

There will be an exhibition and other displays, as well as a series of talks by Mike about the collection, which includes items relating to culture, heritage, politics, commerce, sport and more as well as more specific interests, such as St John Ambulance, the Great War, and ‘home front’ activities in Swindon during wartime.

Members of the family were also keen photographers, so the collection includes hundreds of high quality, previously unseen photographs of local interest.

Library staff will now get to work on the digitisation, cataloguing and conservation of items in the collection, headed by Local Studies team leader, Darryl Moody.

He said: “We receive so many wonderful donations for our collection, but the Dixon-Attwell Collection stands out as the most detailed and comprehensive we have ever seen, providing a unique insight into life in 20th century Swindon.”