We’ve just been running an interactive session for young people at Hay Festival, in the beautiful Brecon Beacons, Wales.

A group of around 15 people gathered in Scribblers Hut to find out what Historypin is and explore why its important that personal history is preserved and shared.

The group went on to match pictures from the site with the stories that accompanied them – with involved lots of close inspection and trying to tell the difference between images from different decades and different places around the globe, but with a keen eye for detail the group aced the exercise.

They then went out into the festival itself to gather their own stories from the primary historical sources available – aka festival attendees… As citizen historians, they gathered memories and stories relating to a number of iconic historical moments which ranged from the fall of the Berlin Wall, to Usain Bolt winning at the Beijing Olympics.

You can see all the stories they gathered on the Hay Workshop Channel on Historypin here. Click on “Show favourites” (next to “show uploads”) to see all the photos we talked about and the stories added!

Thanks to Nominet for getting us the slot at the festival – great to get more people excited about Historypin!