Childhood memories evoked at new museum exhibition

NOSTALGIC MEMORIES of growing up in Leeds over the last 70 years are set to come flooding back at a new exhibition.

The Decades of Youth exhibition – due to open today at Kirkstall’s Abbey House Museum – features vintage objects and images spanning seven decades.

Items on display include a pair of rollerskates from the 1970s, Sinclair video game consoles from the 1980s and a Spice Girls doll from the 1990s.

Young people from the Vintage Youth Club at Abbey House helped put the exhibition together, gathering and researching items from Leeds residents who were asked what they felt best encapsulated life as a young person from the 1940s to the present day.

The exhibition also features a mix of film and digistories from individuals and organisations talking about being young in Leeds from the 1950s onwards.

Maureen Kershaw, 67, of Hyde Park, loaned items including an autograph book signed by Cilla Black and Paul McCartney of the Beatles, who she saw performing at the Leeds Odeon as a teenager.

She said: “My favourite memorabilia has to be my autograph book; so many memories leap off its pages.”

Coun Brian Selby, Leeds City Council’s lead member for museums and galleries, said: “It’s always wonderful to see an exhibition that has given people a chance to participate like this and say exactly what local history and the city that they live in means to them.”

For more details, go to www.leeds.gov.uk/ museumsandgalleries