00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely to speak to Rachel Ung and Sally Jones from the Novium, who together have combined to produce a fabulous, very, very Chichester exhibition, Hurrah for Shippums, which is opening very soon, July the 12th.
00:20Now, Shippums, in a way, synonymous with Chichester, we're talking about a family-run business that ran for the best part of 200 years, didn't it?
00:30Rachel, tell me the thinking behind this exhibition.
00:34Yeah, so the museum has, cares for the advertising archive that's related to Shippums. We acquired that back in the 90s and a couple of years ago we got a grant to really look at that collection and unlock it.
00:54It's under the Arts Council England's Unlocking Collections grant.
00:59We've been researching it and we've done a huge community engagement project and, yeah, it's just full of amazing things and so related to everything Chichester.
01:10Yeah, and Sally, you were saying the fascinating thing is that you get the whole social, cultural history of probably not just Chichester, but the UK, don't you, going through chronologically this archive?
01:22It really does reflect changing times, doesn't it?
01:25Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, it shows not only the development of Shippums as a brand and their products, but it also does trace sort of wider social and cultural history.
01:36So the archive sort of stretches back to the end of the Victorian period and goes to the 90s and it picks up, you know, advertising sort of leaps on whatever is current at the time.
01:50So it will pick up when man first went into space. Shippums used that for competitions.
01:58When the Olympics were on, they jumped on that and incorporated that into their advertising.
02:03And then just sort of the change in lifestyles as well, really.
02:08And to go further back, you're saying you can see the advent of motoring?
02:11Yeah, yeah. You can see when motoring became popular and people were travelling to have picnics and things.
02:19So they start advertising picnics. And of course, the location being close to Goodwood, they bring that into their advertising as well.
02:27We've got some lovely images from the 1930s of a couple in a car heading towards Chichester.
02:33There's a sign for Goodwood there in the in the background as well. It's yeah. Yeah, it pulls it all together.
02:38And it's the perfect exhibition, isn't it? Because it's so much within people's memories.
02:43I remember one of my first jobs on the paper was going and reporting on the Shippums factory Halloween lunch.
02:49I didn't dare tell them I was a vegetarian. I ate very little.
02:55Have you been canvassing local people for their stories too?
02:59Yeah. So part of the project was to conduct oral histories to make sure we gathered those memories of people before it was too late.
03:08So we interviewed 10 people, a range of people that worked at the company, owned the company and people interviewed someone that worked at the London Press Exchange who worked on one of Shippums famous adverts called Shippums Cameo.
03:24So we got a really nice overview of different people's memories of working with Shippums and they'll all be deposited with the West Sussex record office.
03:35So people will be able to hear the full things when they're ready.
03:38Well, that sounds fascinating. Sally, how long have you been working on this? This has been a while in the planning, presumably.
03:43Yeah, almost 18 months, I think now. Yes.
03:47I mean, it feels like it's gone by in a flash because it's been so engaging and so interesting to work on.
03:54But yet it's been quite a long time.
03:56And is that nerve wracking as the opening mirrors and you've been working on it, investing so much personally time wise in it for a long time?
04:04Is that daunting?
04:05Slightly, I suppose. I think we feel very responsible for telling this story.
04:11You know, it's a company that people very much hold at their hearts.
04:16You know, it's very familiar to the people of Chichester.
04:20So we do feel some responsibility for, you know, telling this story.
04:24But then at the same time, I think it's also really exciting seeing it come together.
04:28I can't wait to see it all in place.
04:30I'm looking forward to it so much because, Rachel, it seems the perfect exhibition, doesn't it?
04:35Because it's about a past that people remember, but also a past that isn't truly in the past.
04:41What remains today of Shippam's?
04:43I mean, the brand has gone, hasn't it?
04:46But certainly it's alive in memory.
04:48The brand has gone, but you can still see in East Street, you can see the part of the facade of the old factory,
04:56the clock with the wishbone hanging underneath, that's still there.
05:02And I think the memories, you know, as we've been doing this project,
05:05so many people come up to us and have memories from when the factory was there,
05:10even if it was just, you know, the smell that used to linger around the streets.
05:14It was so strong.
05:15Yeah, absolutely.
05:16So lots of people have, you know, got fond memories of it.
05:20Yeah, and it was really nice to discover, you know, the stories from the people at the heart of this factory.
05:27You know, we sort of set out to record and document the workings of the factory.
05:32It uncovered all these lovely stories along the way.
05:35It sounds brilliant.
05:36And, Rachel, tell me, how will you judge the success of this exhibition?
05:40What do you want people to take away?
05:41I think it's going to be a mix of nostalgia and people reminiscing on the good things.
05:50I think I'm sure people didn't like the smell, but it will be such a nice talking point for people,
05:56especially people bringing younger family members to be able to explain what this brand was
06:02and how big it was in Chichester and the fact that it was, I mean, it amazes me that this big company
06:08making fish and meat paste and loads of products was in the middle of Chichester.
06:13It seems quite alien now.
06:16And didn't we know it?
06:19I'm very glad that that's not here now.
06:23But the really interesting thing was it remained for so long properly a family business, didn't it?
06:28Yeah, yeah, it really did.
06:31It wasn't until the 90s now that, yeah, the last family member was there running the factory, yeah.
06:38Yeah.
06:39Had a very long history as a family company.
06:42And, you know, I think the staff that worked there really felt that.
06:45They felt part of a sort of a wider family.
06:49Absolutely.
06:49Well, it sounds a fabulous exhibition.
06:51I'm sure you're going to have a brilliant response you should do because it's such an important part of Chichester.
06:57Lovely to speak to you both.
06:58Congratulations on the work you've done and I hope it grows brilliantly.
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