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The Generator: Stories & Memories
The Generator: Stories & Memories An oral history project supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund
Stories & Memories project captures the voices, recollections and experiences of those who studied, worked and created in the historic Packe Street building over the decades. Through these personal stories, we are preserving the building’s rich creative legacy while sharing it with new generations as The Generator begins its next chapter as a vibrant community arts venue. With thanks to Institute Loughborough for their continued generous support and for providing the filming location. Click on any picture below to read or watch the full interview
020 Jemma Bagley
A Bucket Catching the Drips: Jemma Bagley on Art Space's Earliest Exhibitions in the Generator Gallery
Jemma Bagley studied textile design at Loughborough Art College from 1987, and by around 1997 was helping run exhibitions and workshops for Art Space, a group still going today, in what was then a semi-derelict generator gallery. In this interview, she talks about hanging work from the building's own gantry hook, an accidental audience wandering in off the street, and how the space taught her almost everything she knows about running a socially engaged arts practice.
Interview date: 06.12.2025
019 Katie Plumpton
Against All Advice: Katie Plumpton on Choosing a BTEC Over A-levels at Frederick Street
Katie Plumpton studied a BTEC at Frederick Street from 2000 to 2002, against the advice of teachers and worried parents who wanted her to stick with A-levels. She went on to specialise in fashion and textiles under Yanina Temple, study textiles at Loughborough University, spend a placement year weaving silk in India, and eventually design menswear shirts in London.
Interview date: 06.12.2025
018 Adam Whelband
A Coin Under the Lift Threshold: Adam Whelband on Restoring the Building He Once Studied In
Adam Whelband studied a general art and design BTEC at Frederick Street from 1992 to 1994, in what's now the cafeteria, before a career path that took him through product design, brickwork and eventually construction. Nearly thirty years later, his groundworks firm was subcontracted onto the generator's restoration, and he found himself walking back into the same building he'd once studied in.
Interview date: 06.12.2025
017 Chris McIntyre
Turning the Power Back On by Accident: Chris McIntyre on the Generator's First Life as a Gallery
Chris McIntyre arrived at Loughborough in 1980 as a part-time art history lecturer and rose, over seventeen years, to Vice-Principal, before going on to become inaugural Dean of Art and Design at the University of Hertfordshire. Long before the current renovation, he was part of the small group who first turned the derelict generator hall into an informal exhibition space, complete with a near-miss involving live switchgear and a scattered pool of mercury.
Interview date: 05.12.2025
016 Purnima Chadha
The Remover of Obstacles: Purnima Chadha on Elephants, Engineering and a Life of Saying Yes
Purnima Chadha studied an art degree at the generator gallery, trained as an electronics engineer when women were actively encouraged into the industry, and built a lasting friendship with Kevin Ryan along the way, who helped her mount a fiftieth birthday exhibition after years of pushing her past her own doubts. She talks about the elephant symbolism running through her sculpture work, Ganesha as the remover of obstacles, and a life spent refusing to accept no from anyone, including herself.
Interview date: 05.12.2025
015 Eric McIntyre
He Bought a Hotel in Skegness for His Students: Eric McIntyre on Herbert Schofield's Legacy
Eric McIntyre worked at Loughborough Technical College, now Loughborough College, from 1978 to 2014, and has since written a history of sport across the university and colleges. In this interview, recorded with the Generator's Community Engagement Coordinator Pasha, he traces the building's story back to 1909 and the man he calls the true father of everything educational in Loughborough post-16: Herbert Schofield.
Interview date: 05.12.2025
014 Martin Allen
Painting a Sunbeam Under the Generator's Roof: Martin Allen on Sixty Years with Loughborough College
Martin Allen's connection to Loughborough began almost by accident, brought to the town as a child during the Second World War, and went on to span a Loughborough College diploma in the late 1940s, a career in the earliest days of semiconductor and microprocessor technology, and a return to teach at Frederick Street from 1966 until his retirement in 1992. In this interview, recorded at The Generator during a Heritage Weekend, he recalls the building as a student, a lecturer, and even, briefly, a place to repaint his car.
Interview date: 08.10.2025
013 James Chantry
Dreaming for Real: James Chantry on Kevin Ryan's Vision for The Generator
James Chantry worked alongside Kevin Ryan, the driving vision behind The Generator, from the project's earliest days at Charnwood Arts, including the "Firing the Generator" consultation weekend that filled the derelict building with cardboard boxes, acrobats and live drawing. He traces Kevin's commitment to the space back through more than a decade of conversations, and reflects on what it meant to be handed an old Yale key to an empty building and told: it's yours.
Interview date: 08.10.2025
012 Martyn Blundell
Frederick Street had a buzz you didn't get anywhere else
Martyn taught at Loughborough for decades without ever quite belonging to it, picking up part-time hours through people he met in the pub while working full-timers' hours elsewhere: Central Saint Martins, Norwich, Nottingham Trent. That outsider's view gave him a rare basis for comparison, and Frederick Street still comes out on top. He remembers a caravan built into an exhibition, a student who locked himself behind a hand-painted glass door, and an eclipse watched from the roof that silenced the birds.
Interview date: 08.10.2025
011 Yanina Temple
Four decades of drawing, chickens and camper vans
Yanina taught in the building twice, first in the early 1980s and then from 1991 until her retirement in 2020, spanning its move from Frederick Street to Epinal Way. She remembers a building that felt autonomous and a little wild: chickens kept on the roof for life drawing, projects set with a single word like "flight," and a mentor, Pat May, who had students spend four days on a single drawing until it was right. She's since visited The Generator's Heritage Open Days and hopes to see it become a broad, open hub for the whole town.
Interview date: 08.10.2025
010 Nenagh Watson
Pushing boundaries and reimagining The Generator
Nenagh Watson doesn't mince words. A puppeteer and multimedia artist who spent 30 years pushing boundaries in Manchester, she's exactly the kind of creative The Generator was designed to serve. When the project was still in its consultation phase, Nenagh was one of the voices championing space for local artists – and she's got some strong opinions about what the venue should become.
Interview date: 20.02.2025
009 Evelyn Silver
From Greenham Common to The Generator and The Tate: Evelyn Silver's art of resistance
Evelyn Silver is living proof that the most powerful art comes from the margins. A self-taught performance artist whose work spans from the peace camps of Greenham Common to the mezzanine of The Generator, she's now having a moment of recognition that's decades overdue. Her feminist anti-nuclear posters from 1981 are currently touring with Tate Britain's "Women in Revolt" exhibition – work that emerged from streets and protest camps, not art schools.
Interview date: 20.02.2025
008 Tony Thory and Nita Rao
Cranes, clocks and creativity
In the heart of Loughborough stands The Generator – a 1930s Art Deco building that once powered much of Loughborough College. But from 1998 to 2006, it became something even more electrifying: home to Artspace Loughborough, a collective that had a lasting impact on the town's cultural landscape.
Interview date: 20.02.2025
007 David Salsbury
From sculpture student to ceramicist and founding the ceramics market
We spoke with sculptor-turned-ceramicist David Salsbury about his student days at The Generator, midnight laser escapades, and building Loughborough's thriving ceramics community.
Interview date: 20.02.2025
006 Ernie Miller
Piecing together The Generator’s hidden histories
Ernie Miller has spent decades piecing together the history of Loughborough's educational institutions. As a former associate director of staff training at the university and passionate local historian, he knows the stories that official records often miss. When we asked him about The Generator building, he had tales that sound almost too incredible to be true – German submarine engines, midnight power outages, and a man who got his own American car serviced as part of "training on production."
Interview date: 13.02.2025
005 Sarah Smith
From Art Foundation to the circus
Sarah Smith's creative journey has taken her from the top floor of the Generator building in Loughborough to the vibrant circus and festival scenes. In this interview, she reflects on her Foundation Art experience in 1994, her subsequent education at Cardiff Art College, and her current roles managing performances at major festivals. Sarah shares how her early art education shaped her thinking and career path, and her vision for what the Generator could become.
interview date: 10.02.2025
004 Jenny Stevenson
From Student to Professional Artist
In this interview, professional artist Jenny shares her formative experiences studying at the Frederick Street art college building from 1995-1997. Now a successful mixed media artist, Jenny reflects on how those early educational experiences at what is now becoming the Generator arts centre shaped her artistic journey.
Interview Date: 10.02.2025
003 Peter Wheeler
From head of Fine Art to Vice Principal: Pete Wheeler's Generator journey
Pete Wheeler, former Head of Fine Art and Vice Principal of Loughborough College of Art and Design, shares his memories of the Frederick Street building and the Generator Gallery in this illuminating conversation. With a career spanning from 1971 to 2000, Pete witnessed the evolution of art education in Loughborough and the transformation of historic buildings that now form part of the Generator cultural center.
Interview Date 10.02.2025
002 Frances Ryan
From pattern cutting to painter: Frances Ryan's connection to the Generator
Frances Ryan, a painter and former educator, shares her personal connections to the Generator building, from her own pattern-cutting course in the late 1990s to her family's deep involvement with the arts centre's development. Frances offers unique insights into the vision of her late husband Kev Ryan, whose passion for creating a community arts space in Loughborough helped spark what would become the Generator project.
Interview date: 08.02.2025
001 Colin Salsbury
From engineering tutor to The Generator’s industrial past
Colin Salsbury. joined Loughborough Technical College in 1963, teaching engineering subjects to apprentices from local firms. In this interview, he shares his memories of teaching at the Frederick Street building during a time of industrial growth in Loughborough, and offers fascinating insights about the German U-boat engines that once powered the Generator.
Interview date: 30.10.2024