Our Project

Our founder, Caroline Aldridge, shares how Remembering Together began and her hopes for the future:
In 2014, my eldest son, Tim, who had a serious mental illness, died.  My loss was compounded by the processes and responses that followed his death. Sewing was the only activity that provided respite from the painful feelings and I literally quilted my way through my grief. At first, keeping my hands busy helped my mind to calm, then I began making things like memory quilts which helped me process my experiences. This morphed into using mixed media textiles as a means of telling my story and activism. Eventually, I wrote about Tim and my experiences in He Died Waiting. Following publication, I met so many wonderful people who were bereaved and unable to find the support they needed. I began making collaborative quilts and supporting people to tell their stories. I became convinced that creative activities, particularly alongside other people, has immense power to bring comfort and healing. I wanted to find a way of bringing this unique approach to those who needed it. My hope is that through gentle, nurturing, and creative moments, people who are experiencing grief will gain strength and comfort from knowing others understand and that they care. Thankfully, I knew some amazing people who had contributed to my second book, They Died Waiting (a collection of stories and a wonderful collaborative quilt), who wanted to support me to form Remembering Together. Some of these – Emma, Andrew, Laura and Heather – would become volunteer directors .

In 2023, I began a quilt project which I took to various venues. I invited people to make a memorial heart to stitch onto an old quilt. It was clear that many bereaved people I met felt isolated and unsupported.They expressed how much they had valued the opportunity to sit alongside their peers to reflect and create. After many ‘what if’ conversations we decided to launch a non-profit social enterprise so we could offer safe spaces for bereaved people to create together. Our aims are in our Articles of Association Information. We have big dreams but decided to start small in our local communities. We were fortunate to receive a grant from Norwich Consolidated Charities for a pilot project. We began offering free workshops in April 2024 so we are still a very new organisation. We are following where the path leads us …