New technology brings to life lost Bognor Regis heroine
One of the great unsung heroines of Bognor Regis will be brought back to life using the latest in new technology – all part of a celebration of the town’s rich seaside heritage.
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00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. I'm really
00:07 fascinating this afternoon to speak to Matt Reid, Bognor Regis-based artist. Now you're
00:12 doing something rather remarkable in Bognor Regis this summer and next summer too, using
00:18 digital technology to bring Bognor's heritage to life, specifically the life of Mary Wheatland.
00:26 Now how does it work? You are creating a portal to go back to this lady's life in the 100th
00:33 anniversary year of her death.
00:35 We are, yes. So we built a time portal, which is a freestanding gateway which will stand
00:42 on the promenade on the beach in Bognor, and using this new technology, augmented reality,
00:48 and your mobile phone, you'll scan the QR code.
00:53 You'll scan the QR code and then as you pass through the doorway, the portal, using your
00:59 phone as a screen, you can see things from Bognor's past. And we will be recreating a
01:08 kind of hologram of Mary Wheatland, which will talk to you. And we'll have what's called
01:15 digital twins, exact copies, digital copies of the bathing machines that she used to own
01:21 and rent on the beach.
01:23 So it really does bring to life the past in an extraordinary way, doesn't it? It's digital,
01:28 it's 3D.
01:29 Yep, that's the plan. And the hope is that this kind of experience can bring history
01:34 to life in a way that's never been possible in a museum or a book.
01:38 So tell me about Mary. What makes Mary interesting? Why is she someone we need to think about?
01:42 And as you say, she's undersung, isn't she?
01:45 I think, yeah, I think she's an undersung kind of hero of Bognor. You know, she's got
01:49 such an amazing story to tell. And she worked on the beach for over 60 years of her life
01:55 in the 19th century, and is credited with saving over 30 people from drowning. So she
01:59 was quite an amazing person.
02:01 And she had bathing machines, didn't she?
02:04 She did. She operated the bathing machines to the east of the pier. There was a different
02:09 operator on the west side, but she had, I think she had around 40 bathing machines on
02:14 that side of the pier, which were mainly for women.
02:17 And the saving the lives is obviously just incidental. She happened to see people in
02:22 trouble.
02:23 Absolutely. And there's quite a few kind of accounts of her just happened to, you know,
02:28 people going into trouble in the water. I think on one occasion, there was a whole family
02:31 of people that got into trouble, you know, with the tides, and Mary ran in and saved
02:36 them one by one.
02:37 Goodness gracious. And as you say, somehow she's been lost to history, hasn't she?
02:42 Yeah, I guess so. And, you know, something like this, especially on her anniversary,
02:47 the death, the 100th anniversary, it's really, really nice to be able to tell her story.
02:52 It's lovely that she's been brought back to life in this anniversary year by a very dear
02:55 mutual friend of ours, Vicki Edwards, who is speaking us and moving us in a holographic
03:03 image, that's a great way of saying it, of Mary Wheatland.
03:07 Yeah, and Vicki's been absolutely brilliant playing the part. And we actually filmed her
03:13 in a studio in Portsmouth, which is a kind of three dimensional video studio. So we've
03:18 managed to capture this three dimensional image of her, which will appear...
03:21 And what does she capture about Mary Wheatland's character, do you think?
03:25 I don't know, she's got the, she seems to have got the posture, you know, really, really,
03:30 really right. And we had a costume made. So we had a costume made by someone who works
03:34 at Glyndebourne. So we took great effort to kind of make the costume as historically accurate
03:40 as we could. And, you know, with the research we've done, we've hopefully captured, you
03:46 know, what we think Mary would have talked like, and, you know, how she would have behaved.
03:53 Are there images in existence, photos in existence?
03:55 Yeah, there's quite a few images. We've had to, we've been working quite closely with
03:58 Sylvia Endicott, she's a local historian. And there are some really good images of Mary
04:06 and the beach at the time. So we've been doing quite a lot of research.
04:11 That's a really fabulous use of the latest technology to highlight our heritage. And
04:17 it's being unveiled then, what day?
04:20 29th of March, which is Good Friday. The portal will become active at midday. And then the
04:26 project runs for 18 months.
04:28 Fantastic. So encompassing two Borkner summer seasons.
04:31 Yeah, that's right.
04:32 Brilliant. It sounds fabulous, Matt. Really lovely to speak to you and good luck with
04:36 the project. Thank you.
04:37 Thank you.
04:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]