Julia Letts
Oral History Producer
(based in Worcestershire)
Telno: 01905 453023
Email: julia.letts@virgin.net

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Margaret Tohill
Archivist
Worcestershire Record Office, County Hall, Spetchley Road, Worcester, WR5 2NP
Telno: 01905 766358
Email: RecordOffice@worcestershire.gov.uk

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Overview by Julia Letts

I conducted a survey for the MLA West Midlands earlier this year, to establish the extent, scope and value of oral history activity currently going on in this region. It revealed a large number of existing oral history collections and on-going projects, some well-funded and professionally managed, others coping on a shoestring and run by highly motivated volunteers. My report listed approximately 95 groups or organisations, which responded to the survey.

Areas of concern most commonly highlighted in my report were: lack of time and funding, mixed advice/ general confusion on best practice and what equipment to buy, need for better guidance in digitisation and long-term preservation of recordings, capacity to make recordings and transcripts more accessible to public, and lack of technical or specialist knowledge.

Many organisations in the West Midlands echoed the thoughts of Coventry Arts and Heritage, who wrote: ‘As with many other organisations, our main difficulty is that we have been collecting oral history for many years with no formalised strategy and therefore there are many different formats, recording procedures etc… We would most appreciate a central body for the region, which could provide assistance, networking opportunities etc. in a similar manner to something like the North West Sound Archive. We feel we do have a wide array of skills within our own organisation, but it would be useful to have a central source of support and advice’.

Other projects in the region that I have had some contact with this year include:

Croome Court, Worcestershire – an oral history project, run by a volunteer group ‘Friends of Croome Park’. Interviews have been carried out with over 30 people involved in the Court’s diverse past, as an RAF base, special school, Hari Krishna commune and private estate. Open Days have been held, and there is a permanent display of photos and captions at the Court. A booklet is in the process of being written.

Worcester Porcelain Museum, Worcester – ‘The Workers’ Story’. 30 Oral History interviews completed so far on life behind the scenes at the Royal Worcester Porcelain factory from 1930 onwards. Interviews include memories of casting, engraving, painting, gilding, burnishing, printing, packing, and working the old bottle kilns. Photos and artefacts have also been collected and a reunion held.

North Arden Heritage Trail, Warwickshire – this project, covering 12 parishes, hopes to combine oral history, sculpture, natural history, photography etc, in several parish ‘walks’. The first trail loop, The Quarryman’s Walk, was launched in June. Footpaths have been improved and sandstone sculptures installed along the route.

Marton Past and Present, Welshpool - this small group of volunteers have been involved in putting together a display of archive photographs, and are now about to embark on interviewing people with memories of the village.

Hereford Cider Museum, Hereford – ‘Apples and Pears Past’. Over 50 interviews have been gathered and processed on all aspects of cider production, from traditional farm cider-making, to large scale production by companies such as Bulmers and Westons. The oral history has been fully integrated into the Cider Museum’s displays, with audio clips from interviews available through sound posts and computer terminals.

Women from the Vale, Evesham – an oral history project run by WiNN Evesham (a group involved in improving the health and well-being of older people in the Evesham area). This project is just starting. Thirty life-story interviews are planned, which will be turned into a radio play by a profesional script writer. The group is working in partnership with Evesham High School and Evesham Library.

Views from Shropshire, Telford – Mana from ‘Bridges’ in Telford has been running a Black and Minority oral history project 2006/7. Amongst other things, she has collected various interviews with groups and individuals, and has produed an exhibition of photos and artefacts.

Holy Trinity Catholic Media Arts College, Birmingham – This school has been awarded HLF funding for a project called ‘Urban Voices’, which will involve students recording oral history interviews with members of the community, with a focus on the area’s Caribbean and Irish heritage.

Smethwick Heritage Centre – this group is just starting up an oral history project focusing on the recent history of Smethwick.

Primrose Hill Park Heritage Project, Coventry – this group started an HLF funded project in December 2006, recording memories about the park, its use in the past and impact on the surrounding area. They are working with young people who will be recording the interviews.

The Rural Media Company, Hereford - a large-scale ‘digital stories’ project is currently in development, covering rural life and farming in Herefordshire, and potentially other parts of the West Midlands.

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Worcestershire

Worcestershire Record Office
The office’s oral history team has been meeting on a much more regular basis this last year to reassess our role and to look at how best to use our time. None of the staff who comprise the team work solely on oral history but have an array of other Record Office tasks to undertake as well. This does mean that oral history work falls off the radar from time to time. The prospect of the Record Office being moved to a brand new building is also looming larger on the horizon and will inevitably affect what we are able to do in the short term, but it will provide us with much improved facilities in the longer term including for audio visual material.

Earlier this year we acquired some excellent, easy to use CD recorders, together with a ‘listening post’ for taking out to events so that up to six people can listen to a recording simultaneously. Last time we had taken recordings out to play at an event, staff had found it hard to give everyone who wanted to listen the opportunity to do so with a machine with only one set of headphones - so this can only be an improvement.

We have continued the ongoing task of checking the transcripts of our World War II project interviews. This has been a long task. Tom Bomford, one of our regular volunteers, has been very much involved in this task. As we have no staff whose time is wholly dedicated to oral history work, we are always very grateful to the help given to us by volunteers, and are currently looking to recruit more to help us with a variety of oral history tasks.

Although we are not presently engaged in a specific oral history project we have nevertheless found ourselves approached by individuals from a variety of walks of life who would like to have their reminiscences recorded and added into the county archives. We are therefore adding these recordings as we do them to a small collection of ‘life stories’ recordings which we did a number of years ago.

We have followed up the work we did last year with a local primary school, which we helped to undertake some interviews of ex-pupils as part of their events marking the reopening of their school in its new building. This year we are undertaking some in depth interviews of some of the people who came forward to be interviewed by the pupils. As well as ex-pupils we also have others who have been involved in school life such as a teacher, a governor and a parent. We hope these interviews will add a different dimension to the material that the school already has.

We have also revamped the oral history training sessions we offer to our volunteers and to local groups and societies. Previously we had done training sessions all on one day. This year we decided to try a slightly different format and split it into two half days with the gap in between being used as an opportunity for participants to go away and undertake an oral history interview themselves. They would then return for the second half-day to evaluate the experience of planning and carrying out the interview. We road tested the new approach with the office’s Education and Learning Group, as they were interested in being able to undertake some oral history work which they could use with local schools or incorporate into teaching packs. The new format got the thumbs up, so is one we will use again in the future.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the Worcestershire Record Office. As part of the celebrations we are hoping to produce a CD relating to life in the 1940s in conjunction with the office’s Microfilming and Digitising Team. This is a new venture for us all, so we are still feeling our way with this task and learning new skills.

Local projects in Worcestershire
During the course of the year we were contacted by a small number of quite diverse local projects. Initial contact often came from someone who used or had written to the Record Office with regard to their research, or had worked with the office on other activities. The following projects made contact:

Cookley Local Agenda 21: a Space for All
Earlier in the year we were contacted by Dr Elizabeth McDonnell of Cookley Local Agenda 21 who was interested in setting up an oral history project as part of work researching and interpreting the history of the recreational and play facilities provided as part of Phase 1 of the project. She was interested in obtaining some help and guidance with the planning process of the oral history project so we arranged to spend a morning with her.

Callow End Historical Society – Powick Hospital project
Members of the Callow End Historical Society are embarking on a small oral history project relating to Powick Hospital, in conjunction with the George Marshall Medical Museum. This project is just beginning and the group is hoping to get started on interviewing shortly.

St Wulstan’s Oral History Project
Worcestershire County Council’s Countryside Service are working with a group who are researching the history of St Wulstan’s nature reserve. The project is expected to last a year. The site had included a World War II military hospital and the group are keen to record the reminiscences of people who had worked or been treated there. Interviewing should start shortly. We are looking forward to hearing more about the end results.

Droitwich Spa Area Forum for Older People
Earlier in the year we were visited by members of the Droitwich Spa Area Forum for Older People who were interested in undertaking some oral history as a way of keeping their members active and involved in the community. Again, this is a project very much at the planning stage and we look forward to hearing more.

Droitwich Library
Val Booler, one of the librarians at Droitwich Library who ran an oral history project for 10 years recording local people’s reminiscences, has retired. As no one in the library was going to be continuing the work she offered the material she had collected to us, so we have now taken this collection over.

Maggie Tohill

WHO CARED? ORAL HISTORY, CARING, HEALTH AND ILLNESS: Marking 60 years of the National Health Service

Venue: Birmingham
Starts on: 4th July 2008, Finishes on: 5th July 2008

To mark 60 years of the National Health Service, the Oral History Society is collaborating with the Medical School, University of Birmingham, to organise a conference aiming to understand health care relationships in the histories of medicine; illness; well-being; disability; and planned environments. The event will be of interest to both new and experienced oral historians in diverse fields of research, with opportunities to discuss and reflect on themes and issues that arise in oral history projects.

More information can be found at this link here.
Telephone:
Email: belinda@essex.ac.uk

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