Living Memory Association

The Living Memory Association was established in 1984. It is an Edinburgh based group that aims to bring people together through reminiscence and oral history work. We encourage people to become actively involved in their community, share their memories, learn from one another, feel valued and respected, and give their knowledge of the past to younger generations.

We have a photographic archive and have also been involved in video-making and drama projects.

We offer many varied opportunities to volunteers of all ages and backgrounds and their contribution is vital to the project.

What we do...

The Living Memory Association provides training to anyone who wants to work in reminiscence. It helps to develop group work skills and suggests creative activities and how to best use resources to stimulate memories.

Our Little Shop of Memory, a huge collection of items donated by members of the public, is based in Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre and open seven days a week.

We can create personal life story books. We start by building a relationship with the person over a series of visits.

During these visits we record the individual's stories and collect any relevant photographs. The recordings are then transcribed and the book designed with the text and photographs before being printed.

We can provide lending boxes covering a number of different topics; such as childhood, cooking, drinking, old Edinburgh, health and wellbeing,holidays, house hold, ladies objects, men's objects and the war time. These help to stimulate memories for older people and also people suffering from dementia; it is also very interesting for younger generations too see what certain objects used to be like and how far technology has came over the years.