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

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Helen Lloyd
Oral history consultant
Birmingham
Telno: 0121 689 0681
Email: info@oralhistoryconsultancy.co.uk

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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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Birmingham & area

At the end of 2010 the Heritage Lottery Fund in the West Midlands produced a useful leaflet for anyone in the area who wants funding for an oral history project.  It outlines what kinds of projects they fund, what their grants pay for and who is eligible to apply.  By the time of publication, they’d already given £6 million to more than 260 oral history projects in the West Midlands, but they’re keen to receive more ideas for projects, particularly from their priority areas of Birmingham, East Staffordshire, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Tamworth and Walsall.

Further information: www.hlf.org.uk/inyourarea/WestMidlands/Pages/Oralhistoryprojects

One of the projects they’ve funded recently is a history of the Birmingham Royal Institution for the Blind, launched in March 2011 by the charity Birmingham Focus.  The project will record memories of people who attended BRIB schools or Queen Alexandra College, or who worked for Focus in the past or who can contribute in any way to the history of blind and visually impaired people in Birmingham.  In addition to the oral history archive, there will be a multi sensory exhibition and a Key Stage 3 workbook for History in schools.

In Nuneaton, the Museum and Art Gallery has trained a group of volunteers to record memories of National Service from 1948 to 1963, under the title ‘Bedbox, Blanco and Boots’. And memories of work and entertainment in Nuneaton in the 1940s and 50s are being recorded by young people at Chilvers Coton Heritage Centre, funded by a Young Roots grant to Warwickshire Community and Voluntary Action.

In Walsall, members of the Fifty Plus Forum joined forces with local young people to record the memories of residents in Blakenall, Leamore and Bloxwich.  The project was called ‘Know Your Place’ and the interviewees included former miners, bargees and travellers.

There’s an increasing interest among immigrant groups in inter-generational projects, to ensure that younger people are aware of their heritage.  For example, the Polish Expats Association has launched a project to record the experiences of Polish people who have arrived in the UK since EU enlargement in 2004 and link these with the experiences of earlier Polish migrants.  The project is called ‘From Exile to Freedom’ and the aim is to promote Polish culture and heritage and to bring the different generations together through a DVD, a brochure and a photographic exhibition at The Drum arts centre in Birmingham.

Also in Birmingham, the Community Interest Company, Aspire4u, has launched a project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to explore Jamaican culture and in particular the origins of Jamaican food.  It’s called the Nyam Project, after the Jamaican word for eating, and aims ‘to get the younger generation of Jamaican descendents to keep the culture alive for future generations’.

In Burton-on-Trent, the East Staffordshire Racial Equality Council is organising the Burton Mixed Heritage Oral History Project to involve young people in recording the memories of people with a mixed heritage background from the 1940s onwards.  They will take part in creating a DVD and a resource pack for use in schools.

In a single week in July 2011, I talked to Somali teenagers in inner city Birmingham about recording the memories of their parents and grandparents, and to teenagers in the market town of Montgomery about recording the history of their local cricket club.  On both occasions I reflected on the privilege of working in a field that allows me to share in experiences so different from my own.
(Helen Lloyd)

Worcestershire

As a freelance networker, I find it very difficult to keep in touch with what is going on in such a vast and diverse area. Alongside other West Midland Networkers, I have developed a good relationship with HLF West Midlands this year, and am regularly called upon to give voluntary advice and information to groups which are applying for funds. This is time consuming and often frustrating, particularly when the groups don’t have the courtesy to tell you if they were successful or not. In June I ran an OHS Introduction to Oral History course, hosted by HLF West Midlands, and attended by two of their staff. Helen Lloyd (West Midlands Networker based in Birmingham) has reported on some of the many 260 oral history projects HLF West Midlands has funded this year. I will restrict my report to any others that I’ve had personal dealings with and any other Worcestershire based projects I have heard about.

Hallow History Group is just starting a project to research, record and present the history of farms and mills, past and present, in and around the village of Hallow (just north of Worcester). During the course of the year-long project, the group will work with all age groups in the community, including school children from Hallow Primary who will record the memories of some of the older inhabitants of the village. A lively series of events and publications are also planned by the group.

Work on an oral history archive at the Kidderminster Carpet Museum (which will open in October 2012) continues apace. A group of volunteers have been recording former carpet workers and collecting memorabilia and documents, bringing together memories of people who were part of the trade when it was at its peak, from the post war years through to the mid 70s.

Grow with Wyre is a community project celebrating the 6000 acre Wyre Forest on the border of Worcestershire and Shropshire. The Forestry Commission is the lead partner in a 3 year HLF funded scheme, one element of which is an audio project called ‘The Nature of Wyre - A Forest Relived’. Through the work of a dedicated volunteer, twenty local residents have been interviewed to archive memories of local crafts, industries, farming, orchards, wildlife and people. A set of CDs will be available at the end of this year.

Volunteers with Stourport Forward are recording interviews with people from Stourport on Severn with connections to the town’s canal basins. The plan is to create a small oral history archive of memories and experiences, and to display extracts from the interviews in the town’s Windlass Heritage Rooms.

I am currently working with volunteers from the Friends of Croome Park to create a memories CD called Croome Voices. This will contain extracts from the 70+ interviews recorded over the last few years with people with connections to the National Trust’s Croome Court in mid Worcestershire.

Sharing the Past: This is the legacy of several oral history projects in Worcestershire over the past five years. Worcestershire County Council commissioned me to create an audio reminiscence box called ‘Sharing the Past’ for use in sheltered accommodation, care homes and nursing homes. The box is also being used on a Dementia Specialist Course run by the University of Worcester, which is aimed at those working with dementia sufferers. I am running two modules on Life-story Interviewing and Therapeutic Reminiscence.

Black Country Stories is a 3-year project run by Multistory to create a photographic portrait and archive about everyday life in the Black Country. To complement Martin Parr’s photographs, Multistory has commissioned a series of oral history interviews with some of the people photographed by Martin Parr. Extracts from the interviews will eventually be on display with the photographs at the Black Country Stories Exhibition at The New Art Gallery in Walsall.

Voices through Corridoors: This is an HLF funded project by Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, following major redevelopment of the Walsall Manor Hospital site. The aim is to capture people’s memories of the hospital, which was a central part of this community for many decades. Volunteers will be trained to interview local residents, patients and NHS staff, creating an archive of recordings which will be shared and used in different ways.

The Hive, a new library and archive centre in Worcester which will bring together the City and University libraries and the County’s Archives. The Hive, which you can’t miss if you visit Worcester with its gold-topped domes reflecting in the River Severn, will have a prominent audio visual element to it. The first theme when it opens in July 2012 is ‘Memory’ so I have been working with others find ways of using and displaying recent oral history collections in the public spaces.

Diggin' Time: This is an intergenerational project in an area of North Warwickshire where the main industry used to be coal mining. The aim of the project, funded by HLF, is to create a greater understanding between younger and older people through oral history and its use.  The project has just started. Focus groups are working with local communities and training young people to interview older residents and explore common community myths such as back doors being left open, people feeling safer than they do now and how people looked after each other in mining communities. Once this information has been collected from local residents, a DVD will be made to be delivered in local schools. An exciting series of school workshops, based on the DVD will also be delivered in primary schools.
(Julia Letts)

Worcestershire Record Office

Worcestershire Record Office's direct involvement in oral history work has continued to be low key as time for the move to the new Worcestershire Library and History Centre gets ever closer and staff concentrate their time on preparing for the move which is scheduled to start in February 2012.  Some work has begun to look at how audio visual material might be used around the new building but this is still very much at the planning stage.  We hope that once the office move has been completed and we are open to the public again we will be able to pick up more active oral history work again.

Our digitising staff have continued to copy older style recordings into digital format as part of our preservation work focussing in particular this year on interviews held on cassettes.

Volunteer work has also been somewhat quiet We have had one volunteer come forward who wished to undertake a small project at home.  We have given him the task of transcribing and summarising some recordings we made with a local school.  He may also undertake some follow up interviews  once we reopen to the public in July 2012 we hope to revive our programme of volunteer work.

Cataloguing Kays project: The University of Worcester have been working on a six project to create a web archive of fashion images 1920-2006.  The project includes some community history and reminiscence work.  The project coordinator has sought some advice and guidance from us in the early stages of the project and will be depositing recordings with us once they are complete.
(Maggie Tohill)