Real Stories 2021

A team of researchers from King’s Centre for Military Health Research have worked on creating an album that tells the personal stories of Armed Forces families living in the UK today.

Intended to challenge the negative way in which military communities are sometimes portrayed by the media, Real Stories provides an opportunity for people to consider the Armed Forces community differently, presented in their own way and filtered through their own lens.

At the outset of the project, military-connected families were invited to submit photographs and stories that portrayed their experience of being a military family. The researchers then worked with Alex Dionysiou to bring everything together to make the Real Stories album, which is available to view here, to see the print version, click here.

Working on the project brought creativity to the ‘daily bread’ of the research team, and provided an alternative and refreshing visual perspective on the epidemiological study of Service personnel,  veterans and their families.

“Real Stories enabled us to capture what family life in the Armed Forces is today. It was brilliant to see the number and wide variety of submissions representing all aspects of daily life. I am really grateful for those who submitted images and really enjoyed working on this project. ” Dan Leightley, a member of the research team.

The military families too enjoyed taking part, with one person commenting “Really pleased to help and be part of this exciting project!"

This project was funded through a King’s Public Engagement Small Grant. The next round will be in Autumn 2021. For more information, please check here.

Reprinted with permission from KERN.