Post your memories to the Grand Hotel Scarborough to be part of history

Festival of Big Ideas by the Sea invites people from all across the UK and beyond to send postcards to Scarborough’s Grand Hotel.

Big Ideas by the Sea is a new environmental and creative festival for Scarborough that will bring together speakers and performers from across the UK.

It is being held on July 16-24 this year and aims to become the leading environmental and creative festival in the North of England.

The festival, in partnership with the National Literacy Trust, will be asking people to send postcards or letters to the Grand to encourage them to reflect upon memories of Scarborough and the Yorkshire Coast, or to write about how they feel at the moment, in a world turned upside down.

Kane Cunningham co-director of the festival said: “We are aware many people have missed their visits to Scarborough and The North Yorkshire Coast and will no doubt be keen to get back to the seaside as soon as possible.

“The postcard or letter is an opportunity to think about coming back and to reflect upon family holidays going back decades.

“To imagine a time when the world seemed full of sunshine, ice creams and fun on the beach.”

All of the postcards will be displayed in the Grand Hotel, to create an installation of images and text, they will then be photographed and exhibited online.

Organisers are encouraging people to be inventive by sending in drawings, poems, paintings and even knitting.

John Oxley, archeologist and co-director of Big Ideas By The Sea said: “As archaeologists, we try and reconstruct past lives and places from material and objects we dig up. The postcards you send to the Grand will be a record of this very strange moment in time.

“After the festival your postcards will be placed in a watertight time capsule. We will bury the capsule in a secret location in Scarborough so that it will remain hidden, waiting to be discovered by archaeologists in the future.

Future archaeologists and historians will be able to use your postcards to help tell the story of Scarborough and this terrible pandemic.”

Rosie Barrett, National Literacy Trust hub manager for the North Yorkshire Coast said: “It’s such a creative project and we are delighted to partner with Big Ideas by the Sea to support it, as part of the work for our hub on the North Yorkshire Coast.

“There are so many ways for families to be involved and spark the imagination, and we’ll also be donating lots of books to participants through events along the way as part of our Connecting Stories project.”

Postcards should be addressed to, Big Ideas By The Sea, Grand Hotel, Scarborough, St Nicholas Cliff, Scarborough, YO11 2ET. Deadline for entries is July 16. For more details on the festival visit www.bigideasbythesea.com