MEMBERS of Ulverston-based group Welfare State International demonstrated a number of activities and skills at a workshop for disabled people in February 1988, which was due to be seen on TV screens that April.
They were taking part in a project to help physically disabled people pursue a career in the arts.
SMILES: Lena Newton waltzing with ‘bin man’ Greville White at a Welfare State International event in 1988
Members of the group led a day-long workshop for 25 disabled people at Calvert Residential Centre, Bassenthwaite, near Keswick, creating music, lanterns and costumes inspired by Tennyson’s Lady of the Lake.
Barrow’s musician in residence Pete Moser took part in the workshop, as well as fellow Welfare State members Hannah Fox, Alice King and Julian Waite.
The activities were filmed by Granada TV for its Celebration programme, which was due to be screened in April 1988.
In 1995 two skilled wood-workers who were helping to restore fire-damaged Windsor Castle were among a team of volunteers building a new barn in Ulverston.
Jake Jackson and Adam Heath had taken a couple of weeks off from royal duties restoring the roof of the castle’s kitchen to join a self-build project at Welfare State International’s HQ in The Ellers.
STATE: Project manager Chris Coates trims the beams of the cruck barn being constructed at Welfare State International’s Ulverston HQ in 1995
Using traditional wood-working tools such as adzes, broad axes and giant paring chisels know as a ‘slicks’, they were helping carve oak frames for a cruck barn, in which the roof was supported by curved timbers, which would be held together by 250 hand-made oak pegs.
Jake and Adam were part of a dozen-strong team working on the giant oaks which once grew along the shores of Windermere on the Graythwaite estate.
Walfare State's Sue Gill said: "Adam and Jake are carving the frames for the cruck barn.
WORKSHOP: Julian Waite of Welfare State International demonstrates how to make a lantern at a workshop held at Bassenthwaite in 1988
"It involves a lot of specialised and traditional woodworking techniques.
"They have split one massive oak into two to make a pair of crucks."
Almost 50 volunteers from all over the country had signed up to build the barn, which would serve as an arts workshop and theatre.
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