Scotland Regional Network
Angela Bartie
Research Fellow, Scottish Oral History Centre
University of Strathclyde, McCance Building, 16 Richmond Street, Glasgow, G1 1XQ
Telno: 0141 548 4376
Email: angela.bartie@strath.ac.uk
Arthur McIvor
Director, Scottish Oral History Centre
University of Strathclyde, McCance Building, 16 Richmond Street, Glasgow, G1 1XQ
Telno: 0141 548 2212/2236
Email: a.mcivor@strath.ac.uk
Howard Mitchell
53 Charterhall Grove, Edinburgh, EH9 3HT
Telno: 0131 667 7602
Email: howardmitchell09@googlemail.com
Aberdeen and Region Oral History Association
(AROHA)
http://www.arohascotland.org/index.php
Telno:
Email:
Scottish Oral History Centre
The Scottish Oral History Centre (SOHC) at the University of Strathclyde has been busy with a range of activities over the past year, not least co-organising and hosting the 2009 conference of the Oral History Society, Hearing Voice in Oral History.
A great deal of the Centre’s efforts have been focused on developing research projects and applying for funding over the last year, with considerable success. Recently, the SOHC has attracted some £230,000 of external revenue from the AHRC for two projects – a three-year Collaborative Doctoral Award to explore ‘Glasgow’s War’ (recipient is Alison Turnbull) and we were really delighted to be awarded a two-year AHRC Knowledge Transfer Fellowship (KTF) to work with Glasgow Museums on the project: ‘The Voice in the Museum: Personal Oral Narratives and Social Identities in Public History (with particular reference to work and workplace cultures)’. The SOHC Director, Arthur McIvor, is the Knowledge Transfer Fellow and Dr David Walker (previously employed by Glasgow Museums on the M74 Oral History project) the Research Assistant. The latter applications were made possible by generous internal funding of the SOHC by the University of Strathclyde in 2008-2009.
The SOHC Deputy Director, Dr Juliette Pattinson, continues her work on the Special Operations Executive in the Second World War – see her book Behind Enemy Lines – and recently completed an oral history project funded by the ESRC on the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in the Second World War. Dr Angela Bartie has continued to work as the senior Research Fellow in the SOHC over the past year and has been involved in the day-to-day running of the Centre: amongst other things coordinating the training; developing the website; organising the regular SOHC seminars; giving advice to a wide range of community oral history projects; and scoping out and writing up oral history funding applications – including the AHRC applications noted above.
She is continuing her research on the post-war history of the Edinburgh Festivals, on the Glasgow gangs in the 1960s/70s and is currently developing a new funding application for the ESRC for an early career fellowship to investigate the Glasgow Mayfests in the 1980s and 1990s. Dr Wendy Ugolini (an oral history specialist on the Italian community in wartime) joined the Centre as part-time Research Fellow for the period Sept 2008 to Sept 2009 and in that time worked with Arthur McIvor (Director) and Juliette Pattinson (Deputy Director) to develop a significant new research project on the Reserved Occupations during the Second World War. Seven pilot interviews have been undertaken, a first paper written and a full-scale UK-wide oral history project is planned - if we can just obtain funding!
Another Research Associate of the SOHC, Dr Andrew Perchard, has recently finished a draft of his new book, Aluminiumville, which incorporates the results of extensive interviewing in the Aluminium communities of the Scottish Highlands. Look out for the publication of this important new monograph in 2010 (Carnegie Press). Andy also has plans to integrate oral testimony into a Highland heritage trail. Arthur McIvor and Ronnie Johnston continue their oral-history based research on male workers, gender identities and health in traditional working class communities and are currently interviewing occupational health professionals, including works doctors and nurses. A big new project on the oral history of deindustrialisation is also in gestation.
The SOHC has continued to provide oral history training seminars for academics, students and interested individuals and groups from the wider community. Our regular training seminars always attract a range of participants, although recently we have also provided a number of tailored packages to specific groups embarking on oral history projects. These have included ‘Rainbow Lives’, a community based oral history project for minority groups in Fife (www.rainbowlives.org.uk) and we are scheduled to provide training for an exciting new oral history of the deaf community in Scotland, organised through the auspices of the Scottish Council for Deafness.
Requests continue to grow for assistance from groups undertaking new oral history projects, with the following examples giving a snapshot of the diversity of new work being developed in Scotland.
- Tall Ship Museum, Glasgow: ‘Glenlee’ oral history project - SOHC have been commissioned by the Clyde Maritime Trust and have primary responsibility for oral interviewing in relation to this project.
- Almond Valley Heritage Museum, Scottish shale oil oral history project - oral history of the shale oil miners and digitisation of existing interviews done in the 1980s (project coordinator John Holt).
- Denny and Dunipace Heritage Society & Community Green Initiative - HLF funding bid and training provision for volunteers for oral history project bringing children and elderly in the community together to explore industrial heritage.
- Scottish Council for Deafness oral history project - advice and feedback on HLF funding bid and organisation of training provision.
- Oban War & Peace Museum oral history project
- Bash Art Creative (Basharat Khan) - advice on getting started with an oral history project on South Asian immigration into Scotland during the 1950s and 1960s
- Scottish Freemasons oral history project - Conference presentation on oral history methodology and advice and guidance regarding a full-scale oral history project on Scottish freemasonry.
The SOHC has also continued to develop its close links with Glasgow Museums over the past year and the AHRC-funded projects referred to above will see such ‘knowledge exchange’ relationships nurtured and extended considerably over the next few years. Apart from advising on collecting policy and new oral history projects, we will be producing an oral history resource pack and CD for Glasgow schools and starting up a new ‘work and community placement in oral history’ undergraduate class at the University of Strathclyde as outcomes from this collaboration. Glasgow Museums’ commitment to expanding oral history is reflected in their recent audit of their oral interview collections (Tracey Hawkins) and a number of ongoing community projects, including the ‘Red Road Flats’ oral history project (see http://www.redroadflats.org.uk/).
SOHC staff continue to supervise a number of PhD projects involving oral history interviewing, including new projects starting September 2009 on ‘Glasgow’s War’ noted above, a new PhD project on ‘Cultural Representations of the Reserved Occupations 1939-45’ (Linsey Robb), a PhD on the 1989 Czech Revolution (David Green) and a new PhD project on the work of the pressure group, the Society for the Prevention of Asbestos and Industrial Disease (William McDougall). Alison Gilmour – now working on the water industry oral history project for the British Library Sound Archive – has recently submitted her PhD on the oral history of the Linwood car plant and Fiona Frank continues in the SOHC with her innovative inter-generational study of the Jewish community through the Hoppenstein family over five generations.
Amongst other oral history work emanating from the West of Scotland, keep an eye out in 2010 for what promises to be a terrific new book by Prof. Lynn Abrams of Glasgow University. This has the provisional title: Oral History Theory, will be published by Routledge, and will include chapters on self, inter-subjectivity, memory, narrative, performance and power.
Angela Bartie and Arthur McIvor