THE Gawler National Trust Museum has mastered a new way to record and share Gawler’s history.

Last week, volunteers celebrated the launch of the new ‘Our Town’ podcast series, which features local voices sharing insights into Gawler’s past.

Gawler National Trust chair David Tucker said the podcast medium has been experimental and new to members, but has helped them deliver the story of Gawler to more people.

“This thing has sort of lit a fuse for us in that old people aren’t to be discarded, they are actually full of information,” he said.

“…We’ve been wondering about how to go about telling local history, figuring it out first and then getting it out there; and lo and behold along comes podcasting and it looks to us to be a useful medium.”

The Our Town series has been funded with a grant from the Office of Ageing Well and marks the start of a state-wide project to be rolled out at other National Trust groups around the state.

National Trust of South Australia chief executive Darren Peacock has praised Gawler’s contribution to the project and said those involved should be proud of what has been achieved.

“The people who produced these podcasts really are speaking authentically for their town,” he said.

“Memory is what shapes our identity and shapes our community.

“So what we are doing with this project is actually allowing people to put those memories together in a new way, where they are able to be accessed around the world and tell the stories of places like Gawler in those authentic voices.”

The first season of Our Town features five episodes and covers migration, Timers Fashions and how mid-century industry shaped work-life and fashion, as well as touches on the polio public health crisis in 1950.

Dr Peacock said the project has also been taken up in Clare, and is ready to spread to other towns, including Robe, in the South East.

“In the process we have actually skilled-up this team of people here in Gawler in how to do this – it’s not that simple of a technology and there’s quite a bit of learning around it,” he said.

“…But the whole idea about this is ‘how do we perpetuate the learning?’

“We really wanted to make sure this group can go forth and teach other groups how to do the same thing.”

The Our Town podcasts are available on a range of services, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts but can also be streamed from (nationaltrust.org.au/our-town-podcast-series/).

The first Our Town podcasts:

Migration to Gawler after WWII by Jeff Turner

Migration—Friends from school by Jeff Turner

Gawler Migrant Hostel by Jeff Turner

Timer Fashions by Marilyn Tucker

1950 Gawler High School Speech Night by Graham Tucker