Imagine walking into the garden, you've seen the poppy sculpture - with each steel flower representing a local life cut short by conflict. Perhaps you've made the connection between that and the joyous sound of children playing in the park opposite.
But now there's one seat you can go to where, as you sit down, you can hear village voices from the past. Letters voiced by modern villagers of their ancestors' concerns, dreams, hardships, longing for a distant England of family community and nature. And letters too from Cranleigh and other villages to their loved ones at The Front. Describing local life - how the home fires were kept burning - and sending all their love.
This innovative listening project will capture some of Cranleigh's important oral history over the last 100 years, which would otherwise be lost. So as we turn to more current conflict - the Second World War, Korea, Afghanistan - we will drop in on local families and friends talking about their experience at home and abroad.
These unique oral reminiscences will also provide a valuable educative online resource.
Linking the audio experience with the garden, the physical presence of the
listener triggering an intimate encounter with voices from the past. QR codes
will be dispersed throughout the space to access other audio accounts and
further website content. So story-telling with a difference, using the latest high-tech, to attract younger listeners too.