A PROJECT to record memories of dales life has been extended after a lottery grant was secured.

Swaledale Voices was launched by the Swaledale Museum at Reeth, near Richmond, last year. It aims to record local people reminiscing about their lives to provide a permanent historical record.

The 3,600 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund's Awards for All scheme will pay for interview technique training by the British Oral History Society for museum volunteers.

It will also fund electronic 'listening posts' with earphones through which visitors and researchers can hear the recordings.

The scheme follows other oral history projects elsewhere in the Yorkshire Dales.

The museum's successful application was put together by the Friends of Swaledale Museum with help from Richmondshire District Council's museum development officer Julie Biddlecombe.

She said: "Swaledale Voices is a fantastic project that will help preserve another piece of Richmondshire's unique heritage for future generations.

"It is great to know that, hundreds of years from now, people will be able to turn back the clock and hear first-hand how we lived our lives in the early 21st century."

Veronica Sarries, co-ordinator for the project at the Swaledale Museum, said: "We are thrilled to have got this funding so that we can start to record Swaledale people, and tap into the great wealth of oral history in this region. We will now be able to make the recordings accessible to all."

The grant will cover the cost of 'listening posts' at the museum, which will allow easy access to the recordings, which will link with other displays and exhibitions.

The project will take place throughout the year and it is hoped that the listening posts will be in place towards the end of 2008.

Anyone interested in being involved with the Swaledale Voices project can call at the museum, which is open on Sundays until Easter and then from Wednesdays to Sundays, plus bank holiday Mondays, all 10.30am to 5.30pm.

News of the cash award came days after a £49,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to Middleham Town Council to preserve that town's heritage.