The Story of Me and My Town
Hind Leys Specialist Arts College, Forest Street, Shepshed
Monday 3rd September until 19h October 2012
‘The Story of Me and My Town’ exhibits a selection
of historic photographs and personal stories related
to people in the Minato-ward of Tokyo as a legacy
of the local connections with Japan through the
Olympic and Paralympic Games in the summer
of 2012. Loughborough, is honored to be hosting
a significant part of the Japanese Olympic team
alongside the British team at the training facilities
of Loughborough University. The exhibition will also
reference the Tokyo Olympics of 1964. Originally, ‘The Story of Me and My Town’ was a
community arts project that was run from 2003 to
2007 and earlier on in 2012 in Minato-ward, Tokyo,
Japan.
Minato-ward, where urban re-development is still
underway, is suffering rapidly vanishing ties within
the community. This is due to both the outflow of
population and the ageing of remaining residents
as well as the more mobilized lives of newcomers
to the community. In such circumstances, older
people are feeling more and more isolated. The
Creative Art Executive Committee established the
community arts project with the aim of promoting
communication between residents of different
generations and between new and old residents in
the community.
The project did this through
interviewing older people
about their memories based
on their old photographs and
then exhibiting these photos
and stories. Two fantastic
books were also produced as
part of the project as well as a
linked video, photography and
installation work by UK artist
and film-maker Jeannie Finlay.
Entitled ‘Homemaker’ this was
exhibited internationally.
Charnwood Arts have also
undertaken numerous projects
along the same lines in
Charnwood under our People
Making Places programme
and we plan to develop a
new community project in
Shepshed based on this
exhibition. The exhibition, in collaboration with
Creative Art Executive Committee, Tokyo,
is open to the public on weekdays only
from 2pm-5pm on Mondays and
from 2pm-9pm on Tuesday - Friday
My Mother and My Aunt Cooking in the Kitchen
This is a picture of the kitchen in the house where I was
born, in Tango-cho in Akasaka. There was an under-thefloor storage area (about 3 square meters) in the kitchen.
Its lid was called an age-ita, or “raising-board,” which you
could raise to store things under the floor. Another name
for it was age-futa, or “raising-cover.” The woman on the left is my mother, who was putting
rice in the iron rice cooker. The other is my aunt. In those
days, someone from a grocery store came to my house in
the morning to take an order, and in the evening vegetables
and fish were delivered from the store. In autumn, we
ordered matsutake (fragrant mushrooms), too. Matsutake
are very expensive now, but they were cheaper then and
my mother sometimes made matsutake rice.
Name: Akira Sugiyama
Year of birth: 1924
Year photo was taken: 1930
Location where photo was taken:
Home in Tango-cho (now Akasaka 4-chome)
On Tuesday 3rd July the torch will pass through Quorn, Loughborough, Hoton, Wymeswold, Asfordby, Melton Mowbray,
Langham, Oakham and Uppingham. The street-by-street detail of the route will be confirmed later in the year.
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Carrying 35 Bowls of Soba on Trays in Six Tiers
When I was 15, I came to Tokyo from Niigata (in
northern Japan). I started to work at a soba restaurant in
Yonnohashi, and I worked there for 13 years. This is a
picture of me in my second year at the soba restaurant.
Many companies were very busy because of the Tokyo
Olympics. In the evening, I got a lot of delivery orders
from company offices. I always delivered soba riding my
bicycle on a gravel path. To carry 35 bowls of soba on
trays in 6 tiers, I practiced late at night carrying a tub full
of water.
In those days, there were many more delivery orders. In
addition to lunch and dinner, I delivered snacks like frappe
in summer and oshiruko (sweet red bean soup) in winter.
My sandals were worn out quickly, as I was so busy.
When I got my salary, I bought a pair of sandals and sent
some money to my mother. Then I went to see a movie,
and there was nothing left of my salary after that.
Name: Masahiro Hoshi
Year of birth: 1946
Year photo was taken: 1963
Location where photo was taken:
In front of the soba restaurant in Yonnohashi
Calligraphy Practice at the Beginning of the Year
My father inherited the family’s timber business, so around 1947 or 1948 he opened his own shop in Kasumicho,
where we had lived since before the war. There aren’t any timber shops now, but in those days there were several
timber shops in the area and they all had nice displays of timber in front. For a while after the war, there were few
buildings around and many vacant lots, so we often played baseball. I didn’t have a proper glove, so my mother
made one from rags and I cherished it very much.
On New Year’s Day, all my relatives came to my
house, and a neighbor who worked at a photo
studio took this photo. Those days, I was studying
calligraphy and soroban (arithmetic), and on New
Year’s Day our custom was for my father to get all my
brothers and sisters to do some calligraphy, which we
then displayed in the living room.
Name: Yoshio Koike
Year of birth: 1937
Year photo was taken: 1954
Location where photo was taken: Home in Nishi-azabu 2-chome
The Pilkington Library, Loughborough University will be hosting a project for The People’s Record, a unique community
archive project to capture the stories of individuals and communities in the Olympic host country for the first time.
Heart of 3 Cities 2012
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