Oral history · Newport
Flame Keepers
The women who built Ronson lighters on Forest Road, Newport, from 1961 to 1984, recorded before their memories are lost.
- 5
- recorded interviews
- 200+
- archive photographs
- KS2
- free teachers’ pack
Our work
Projects
Each project records one story the Island was close to losing: the people, their memories and their photographs.
Before Discover More
Earlier work by our team
Flame Keepers wasn’t where we started. Members of our team have been recording oral histories on the Island and around the Solent since 2013.
These projects were made by people now in the Discover More team, before the company was formed, for the organisations named on each one.
2024–2025 · Ryde, Isle of Wight
Packs’ People
The people who worked, shopped and modelled at Packs’ department stores in Ryde, recorded as the building became Department, an arts centre.
2022–2023 · Gosport, Hampshire
Submariners’ Stories
Recollections of the Royal Navy Submarine Service and its long home in Gosport, from escape training to life under the sea, in more than 400 short audio clips.
2017–2021 · Isle of Wight
Farming Memories and Memories of the Sea
Islanders who worked the land and the sea, turned from hour-long recordings into hundreds of themed one-to-two-minute clips, on two websites, with an Amazon Alexa skill for Farming Memories.
2013 · Yarmouth and Thorley, Isle of Wight
Yarmouth and Thorley Voices
Residents’ memories of Yarmouth and Thorley, from the 1920s to the 2000s, gathered by a small volunteer team into a book and a website. The first oral history project our team worked on.