The Secretary Ambleside Oral History Group

c/o Ambleside Library, Kelsick Road, Ambleside, LA22 0BZ
Telno: 01539 432507
Email:

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Emma Chaplin
39 Downham Road South, Wirral, CH60 5SE
Telno: 0151 342 9651/07884254351
Email: emma@emmachaplin.co.uk

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Stephen Kelly

17 Hartington Road, Chorlton, Manchester, M21 8UZ
Telno: 0161 861 9289
Email: sfkelly@ntlworld.com

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Rosalyn Livshin
48 Park Road, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 0FA
Telno: 0161 740 3941
Email: rosalyn.livshin@googlemail.com

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Andrew Schofield
Sound Archivist
North West Sound Archive, Old Steward's Office, Castle Grounds, Clitheroe Castle, Clitheroe BB7 1AZ
Telno: 01200 427897
Email: nwsa@ed.lancscc.gov.uk

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Greater Manchester

The ‘Refugee Voices’ Project, on which I worked in the North of England, was launched at the Wiener Library in June 2009. The Archive contains 150 video interviews with refugees and survivors of the Holocaust, of which over half come from the Manchester area, the North of England and Scotland. All of the interviews are fully transcribed and catalogued and a website has been created at www.refugeevoices.co.uk The Archive will also be deposited at the Universities of Leeds and Leicester and negotiations are underway with other institutions.
Over the past year I have been contacted by a number of fledgling projects for advice and training and I have worked closely with the HLF Funded Windermere Project ‘From Auschwitz to Ambleside’. This project has undertaken interviews with child survivors of the Holocaust who were brought to hostels in Windermere to recuperate after the war. It has also conducted interviews with local people who remember their stay. It is intended to develop a website and to make a permanent exhibition of the testimonies and copied photographs at a venue in the Lake District. For more information about the project see www.anotherspace.org.uk.
In Manchester, the Museum of Science and Industry started a new HLF Funded oral history project in February 2009 called ‘Connecting with People’s Histories’. The project focuses on the food processing, entertainment and gas and electricity industries of Greater Manchester. The project aims to capture stories of people’s working lives within those industries and these will be hosted on a website. To date 40 interviewee stories have been uploaded onto the website at www.mosi.org.uk/collections/explore-the-collections/oral-histories-online. The recordings will also support the museum’s collections and provide relevant content for its exhibitions; and the interview process will help to identify potential new acquisitions.
The Irish Diaspora Foundation has been working with local schoolchildren collecting oral history testimonies from the Irish community focusing on the impact of Irish migration on the local food heritage, with particular reference to the Cheetham/Crumpsall Allotments. They also recorded memories of the changes in building use in their local area over the last 50 years.
A number of museums have engaged in some oral history work for exhibition purposes. The Manchester Museum has been developing its practice of video recording conversations showing people’s interpretation of the objects within the Museum’s collection and of doing outreach work within schools and communities. A new permanent Manchester Gallery has been opened to focus on aspects of Manchester’s history, as seen through the collection and as experienced by communities, and to this end local school children interviewed residents of Gorton on the changes that have taken place in that area.
The Imperial War Museum North has been interviewing Second World War veterans with Prisoner of War experiences for their special exhibition gallery ‘Captured’ and it will conduct more interviews with veterans who were in the Royal Navy for a forthcoming exhibition on the War at Sea.

The Salford Lifetimes Project conducted video interviews with musicians and fans for use in their popular music exhibition, ‘Quiffs, Riffs and Tiffs’ and they are about to start the Ordsall Hall Oral History Project to provide content for new exhibitions when the Hall reopens after renovation.

Ros Livshin

North West Sound Archive

For the past two years North West Sound Archive has been based in temporary accommodation while extensive building and renovation work has been undertaken on the Clitheroe Castle site. This has now been completed and the Sound Archive has recently moved back to its permanent home back at the castle.
The North West Oral History Network continues to grow and now has over 230 members, with many oral history training sessions being held throughout the year. Although some recording projects have again reached their natural conclusion and have left the Network many more have joined. There are, at the current time, a sizeable number of projects awaiting a decision on funding, and it is hoped that a significant number of these will gain funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Besides these HLF funded projects, several Local History Societies have begun their own recording work.
Most of these projects are depositing either their master recordings with North West Sound Archive or allowing the Archive to take `security’ copies of the resultant collection, thus ensuring the long term preservation of the material. About 5000 oral history recordings have been deposited with North West Sound Archive in the previous year. Throughout the year North West Sound Archive has continued its own recording programme. Besides many ‘one off’ recordings the Archive is undertaking recording work in conjunction with Pilkingtons Glass at St. Helens and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Andrew Schofield