Diary of the war podcast series launch day

Finally, after several weeks of preparation, today we launched our Diary of the war podcast series at Great Malvern Priory.

Around 90 people came to the launch event. They travelled from as far away as Northumberland, Devon and Wales to join the Edinburgh Napier team in Malvern. There was a great buzz in the priory as everyone mingled before and after the presentations: locals, members of the Lloyd family, and blippers. It seems that everyone enjoyed the chat, the presentations, and the 1940s style refreshments. So far four blippers have written their own reviews of the event. See the reports by Munroist4113, TBay, hazelh, and Cheeseminer.

The first formal session chaired by Bruce started at 2:30pm (repeated at 5:30pm) with a superb presentation by Malvern Museum curator Faith Renger on the life of Lorna Lloyd and wartime Malvern. Faith’s narrative and slides set the context for Bethany Ray, who plays her great-great aunt Lorna in the podcast series, to read out excepts from the war diary and Lorna’s poetry, using a script prepared by Hazel. Bethany’s excellent performance evoked emotional responses amongst the audience members, ranging from joy to sadness. Several struggled to hold back tears at the end of Bethany’s performance when she read out the poem Looking forward.

Three of the podcast series episodes created by the Edinburgh Napier University student team are now available from the Malvern Museum web site, or from RSS:

Diary episode 1: https://player.rss.com/lornalloyd/482131?theme=light
Diary episode 2: https://player.rss.com/lornalloyd/482135?theme=light
Diary episode 3: https://player.rss.com/lornalloyd/482139?theme=light

Episodes 4-8 of diary will follow. A sample bonus poetry episode is also available now with another three to be released soon:

Sample poetry episode (episode 4): https://player.rss.com/lornalloyd/482190?theme=light

Over summer 2022, the student team will be working on enhancements to the podcast series so that the next version will include sound effects. We will keep blippers posted on these developments.

The main blip is of Bethany Ray showing the effort she put into styling her hair in a similar way to her great-great aunt. In the extras are shots of Malvern Priory in the sunshine, and student team leader David, Hazel’s husband, and Bruce checking the technical set-up for the sessions.

We hope to make the videos of the presentations available soon for those who would have liked to have come to the launch, but couldn't make it. Watch this space!