Hannah Parry, 30, is community development co-ordinator for the Mechanics’ Institution Trust, which recently launched a community allotment tended by volunteers. She lives in the Railway Village

THE Mechanics’ Institution Trust is best known for its plans to revive the iconic Swindon building, but that’s not its only project.

There’s the newly-unveiled allotment, of course, but the trust also has the Central Community Centre and plans to turn the former Baker’s Arms pub into a community cafe.

There is even a plan to revive an almost-forgotten Swindon museum of early Railway Village life, the so-called 1900 Museum.

The trust is working on securing funding to revive the Mechanics’ Institution itself as a theatre, cinema and base for independent shops and community groups. With the building out of private hands for the first time in many years the prospects, Hannah Parry insists, have never been better.

Volunteers are crucial to each of the projects, which are parts of a single agenda.

“We’re trying to build a range of things people can benefit from and be involved with in different ways,” Hannah said.

The trust also aims to rekindle the spirit of the people who built and used the Mechanics’ Institute.

“We’re focused on the community culture that was so strong at that time.

“It was a DIY culture as well. People didn’t wait to be provided with things; they made things, they created things themselves that were socially driven around community, around people, around education, culture.

“That’s what the trust is all about. It’s not just the building for the sake of the building; it’s about the culture, the character of the people that actually built that building and grew from it.

“Loads of other organisations grew from that culture, but that was where it really started.”

The spirit is still here, she insists.

“It’s in little pockets, but this is about having a central place for it, where people can be supported in doing what they’re doing.”

Hannah’s mother is veteran community campaigner Martha Parry and her father is filmmaker and community television stalwart Martin Parry. Hannah herself is involved with community television, serving as a Swindon Viewpoint trustee.

Her family lived in Canada before coming to Swindon, where Hannah was born at the old Princess Margaret Hospital.

In view of her pedigree, it’s hardly surprising that her taste for community work developed in childhood.

“My earliest memories? I don’t remember the details but I remember the Mechanics’ Institution Trust setting up 20 years ago.

“My mum reminds me that I made a painting of the building talking. It said ‘Save Me’ in big capital letters, and then it said ‘...chanics.’”

Commonweal School was followed by a two-year Swindon College course in communication design.

A year out saw her embark on an odyssey around the United States and Canada, and then came a degree in graphic communications in Cardiff, although Hannah took a few years out to work for a social housing organisation in Bristol.

“I guess I wanted to do something that I felt was directly benefiting people. Housing is something that affects everybody. I worked on reception in a front line role initially and was dealing with all sorts of issues – signposting people to local services as well as dealing with housing issues they were having.

“Then I was a tenancy support worker. I was working with rough sleepers and helping them when they came out of hostels and into their first houses.

“I was helping them to reintegrate into the community, find work and that kind of thing.

“I think it taught me the value and importance of feeling part of the community.

“For a lot of them, their community was other homeless people, but going into different circumstances it was really important for them to establish new connections.”

After graduation a few years ago, Hannah returned to her home town.

“I really only came back as a stopgap. I thought, ‘Well, I’ve lived in Bristol and I loved it, but maybe I want to try somewhere new.’ “I never imagined that the new place was going to be Swindon, but I realised how many interesting things there were to be doing here, and how much work was needed as well.

“There are so many things going on in these other places, and that’s because there are more people involved in creating things.

“There isn’t so much of that here and I guess I felt the projects on offer – Viewpoint and the Mechanics – were important things that needed support.”

She describes the value significance of the trust’s work as immeasurable.

“The reason I’m doing it is because I think it’s the most important thing for the town in terms of what the potential is.

“That’s the message we want to get across to people. I completely understand if they think it’s a lost cause because it’s been such a long time, but it really isn’t.

“There is, if anything, now more of an opportunity for something positive to happen, community-wise, for that building than there has in the last twenty years because it’s not in private ownership anymore.

“There is hope and there is opportunity.

“We just want to encourage more people.

“The work we’re doing is to try and build back that culture of creation and making things happen.

“It’s easy to sit around and moan about stuff not being the way you want it to be, but we’ve really got to just pull together and work together.

“No-one else is going to do it, and certainly with council cuts and suchlike we can’t be expecting anybody else to do it.

“Culture is something that comes from the people. It is the people.

“It’s not just the icing on the cake – it is the cake.

“It’s ours and we need to create it.”