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
Alison Burgess
Local Studies Officer
Dumfries and Galloway Council, c/o Ewart Library, Catherine Street, Dumfries, DG1 1JB
Telno: 01387 253820
Email: alison.burgess@dumgal.gov.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
Chair, Scottish Oral History Group
Dept of Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, 27 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LD
Telno: 0131 667 7602
Email: h.mitchell@scottishoralhistorygroup.co.uk
Scottish Oral History Centre
It’s been an exciting and busy time at the Scottish Oral History Centre over the last year – we can only provide a brief snapshot of the range of projects, developments and events that have occurred or are ongoing. These come in addition to our continuing oral history training seminars and the work that we continue to undertake on projects going on in the wider community.
In September last year, we were delighted to welcome Dr Andrew Perchard to the newly created position of Research Coordinator (a post to which he brings his considerable research and oral history field experience). Andrew is continuing his work on the impact of 'deindustrialisation' on identity in Scotland since 1945 (funded by the British Academy and Royal Society of Edinburgh), and is currently developing an international collaborative project in the broader area of the social impacts of deindustrialisation on communities. Andrew is also editing the 2011 edition of Scottish Labour History, which is devoted this year to oral history, and dedicated to the pioneering labour and oral historian Ian MacDougall, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Scottish Labour History Society (SLHS). In conjunction with SLHS, and the Scottish Working People’s History Trust (who celebrate their twentieth anniversary in 2012), the Scottish Oral History Centre are organising a one day conference, hosted by the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC); ‘Understanding the Past and Facing the Future: Labour and Working Class History in Scotland’ will be held at the STUC on Saturday 5 November 2011 (more details can be obtained from Andrew Perchard). Interviews for the British Academy funded project ‘Narratives of Glasgow: Oral Histories of Youth Gangs in Easterhouse, c. 1960-1975’ by Angela Bartie and Alistair Fraser (Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, University of Glasgow) are nearing completion. In this, Angela and Alistair have been working on a collection of interviews conducted in 1969 with boys who were in youth gangs in the Easterhouse area of Glasgow, and are doing follow up interviews with some of those who were originally interviewed over 40 years ago alongside new interviews with others who were involved in youth gangs between 1960 and 1975. Juliette Pattinson is completing an oral-history based book on the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry during the Second World War, looking particularly at gendered subjectivities during this period (a theme she has also published articles on recently) while Arthur McIvor is completing his book on work in Britain since 1945 and continuing to work with David Walker on ‘The Voice in the Museum’ project.
This Scottish Oral History Centre and Glasgow Museums collaborative project was discussed in OHJ (Vol 38, No.2, p.25) but since then work on the Glasgow Museums oral history collection has gathered pace. Around 200 of the 300+ interviews have now been digitised and summarised; a process that has helped reveal the content and quality of this ‘forgotten’ oral history archive. A catalogue of the archive is now in the process of being created and thereafter will be hosted on Glasgow Museums ‘Collections Navigator’ website. The new web pages will provide much needed information about the collection as well as access guidance for the general public. Also emerging from this AHRC funded project a new school resource is being developed entitled ‘Shipyards to Office Blocks: Voices of Glasgow People in the Workplace c.1950-2000.' This resource will utilise audio clips selected from the archive to help pupils engage with the meaning and social identity of work and the workplace. Further, a new resource is being developed for use within the Open Museum section of Glasgow Museums. The Open Museum has enjoyed a successful history of working within communities, engaging with a wider audience through collaborative projects, object handling and reminiscence kits. It is hoped that this new resource will help deliver new material for use in a variety of future projects. The process of digitisation and summarisation has helped identify certain gaps within the collection and consequently a new oral history project was initiated. More than 20 new interviews have already been undertaken with more in the pipeline. The new interviews focus almost exclusively on the working lives of the respondents who include engineers, teachers, civil servants, bankers, and some specialist staff who at one time worked as creative designers in the Templeton and Stoddard Carpet manufacturers. It is hoped that this oral history project will continue beyond the life of the AHRC funded project providing new material for Glasgow Museums and schools.
Our postgraduate community remains strong, with projects being undertaken in a range of areas including the 1989 revolution in Czechoslovakia (David Green), an intergenerational study of the Jewish community (Fiona Frank), cultural representations of the Reserved Occupations (Linsey Robb), and Women in agriculture, 1920-1950 (Alison Burgess). Alison Chand is progressing well with her with her Ph.D funded by the AHRC (Collaborative Doctoral Award) on Glasgow’s War and Masculine Identities in the Reserved Occupations. Now in her second year, she has undertaken approximately thirty new interviews with men who worked in reserved occupations in Clydeside during the Second World War. She is also working extensively with the existing oral history collections at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre in Nitshill. We are looking forward to welcoming new doctoral students utilising oral history in their research during this coming academic year.
Outside the SOHC, we can report briefly on lots of interesting projects currently on the go (and we know of many more in the pipeline). The HLF Scottish Council on Deafness (SCoD) project ‘Presenting the Past: My Firsts’ launched the first in a series of DVDs arising out of their project in April 2011. This exciting project, for which Angela Bartie and Arthur McIvor of the SOHC were delighted to provide training for, saw nearly 60 deaf people between the ages of 50 and 88 interviewed in British Sign Language (BSL) and filmed in locations around Scotland. The first DVD focuses on memories of employment, with more DVDs planned on a range of themes arising out of the interviews (contact Lillian Lawson, SCoD: www.scod.org.uk). Our Research Fellow, David Walker, who worked on the M74 DIG Public Archaeology Project, informs us that a free booklet has been published to coincide with the opening of the M74 Completion, the final section of the M74 motorway: D Drew, The Glasgow We Used to Know: The Archaeology of the M74 Motorway Completion Project in Glasgow and South Lanarkshire. This booklet highlights the various public projects that were undertaken in combination with the archaeological dig conducted prior to the construction of the road. Amongst the many projects discussed the M74 oral history project features quite prominently. The testimony and photographic images help to bring to life the social and economic conditions experienced by the respondents over many decades in this area of Glasgow. Importantly, future academic publications relating to the archaeology will cite the oral history outcomes as important in helping inform the archaeological discoveries. All of the 24 interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed and the entire data set, including historical images of the respondents and their environment, has now been deposited at the Scottish Oral History Centre. The Lighthouses and Citadels school project looked at Scotland’s heritage in the form of lighthouses, and in particular at Ailsa Craig and the Mull of Galloway Lighthouses as a local resource to schools in South Ayrshire Council. Around 200 children from six schools participated on the project. The teachers and children received some basic training in oral history from David Walker of the Scottish Oral History Centre before going on to interview former lighthouse keepers and their families. An exhibition of the children’s artwork and interviews was held at the McKechnie Institute in Girvan, South Ayrshire between December and March. Devised by Jenny Renfrew, Senior Cultural Co-ordinator, the project was funded by Heritage Lottery, Museums Galleries Scotland, South Ayrshire Council, and the Scottish Arts Council. The children’s interviews with the lighthouse keepers are now available on the SCRAN website.
We also have lots of exciting developments to look forward to over the coming year. Next academic year, oral history will be embedded further into the undergraduate curriculum in the School of Humanities with the launch of the new team taught class Oral History: Theory and Practice. Our successful bid for strategic funding from the University of Strathclyde means that we will be able to embark on a programme of infrastructural development, and also welcome our first Visiting Professor at the SOHC in spring 2012: Professor Steve High, of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (Concordia University). We are also pleased to announce that Dr Toby Butler, of the Raphael Samuel History Centre and the University of East London, and sociologist Dr Tim Strangleman, University of Kent, have been made Research Associates of the Centre. Finally, we are looking forward to moving to a purpose-built SOHC Lab and Archive in the new School of Humanities building in 2012.
(Angela Bartie & Arthur McIvor)
Dumfries & Galloway
I have been involved with two groups, one of which has finished their project. Springholm Village Voices aimed to produce a booklet and DVD (incorporating both images and sound bites). This was successfully launched but the very small committee want to continue interviewing and recording. The other group is just beginning to focus on their project. Within Dumfries and Galloway, the Library and Archive Service are in the very early stages of starting an oral history archive. Initially, the focus of the interviews has been those involved in the Home Guard and people who were evacuated to this region. We are looking for interested people who might like to volunteer with this project. For more information, please contact Alison Burgess on 01387253820 or alison.burgess@dumgal.gov.uk.
(Alison Burgess)