Taping Historical Memories

[Drusilla]

Is there an organization that tapes the historical memories of old people?
I will be having a New Year's meal with my parents and their friends, two of whom are spookily linked by Concentration Camps from WWII.
One of Mum's friends was a baby in Singapore when the Japanese arrived and spent the entire war in a concentration camp. As a toddler she saw her mother abused by Korean guards and watched her brother die from disease.
Mum's other friend is about fifteen years younger and her family are originally from the Baltic states. Her father was a guard in a concentration camp and escaped to England after the War because the Russians executed his brothers and father.
These two women have fascinating stories to tell. Is there an organization that can help?

[dotjhawkes]

http://www.ohs.org.uk/

this is the homepage of the Oral History Society

[dotjhawkes]

When I did my Degree in my second year, i took an Oral history module and I had to tape an interview and then transcribe it, then I had to analyse it as a source for historical research.

It was 1997, I recorded my Dad talking about his childhood as a farmer's son in Cheshire. We only just found the tape when we cleared the house after his death earlier this year. i had not kept a copy apart from the transcript, which we copied and gave out after the funeral. Then when we found the tape, my brother-in-law has transferred it to CD and copied it for all the family. It is two hours of my Dad talking about his family, his parents, grandparents and the baby sister he lost when he was 4. I may never be able to actually listen to it but my children and grandchildren will.

What i am saying is, it is something that can be done at any time, and guaranteed if you put it off, you will regret it. Get everyone together, just let them talk and make sure you have a long play tape,

[Peter Pedant]

There are also courses for interviewers, so one does not sit down and just does it.

I think the best thing is to get trained and then interview the people themselves.

I am facing the same issues both at work, and at home - one of my neighbours up the road was wearing an Aden insignia and was in Crater in 1967 - about which there has as far as I know, very little been written.

[dotjhawkes]

Peter there is a module from the Open University on their 20th Century History Course that is an in depth guide to preparing to make an Oral History Interview/recording. At Uni, we had this book on our reading list and I got it via my local library, but the Uni library only had one copy.

[Peter Pedant]

Happy New year Dot

Mwah mwah !

name of book ? and then I can order it - and even read it! The Crater fellow I am more interested in [than old drones droning on about founding a school], as he gasped about the insignia - how can you read Arabic ?

Mad Mitch - and all that ! If you recollect mad m took over [and consequently wrecked his career and a few others] after a squad of troopers had been abandoned to their fate in Crater, and were butchered.

I see the Oral history soc do one day courses....are they any good do you think.

[Peter Pedant]

Structured interviewing ;

I can do that OK but I wanna do it in an historically acceptable fashion.....

[dotjhawkes]

From the OU course, Studying Family and Community History (19th and 20th Centuries) Vol 4

Sources And Methods: A Handbook

Edited by Michael Drake and Ruth Finnegan

Cambridge University Press 1994

ISBN 0521 46580-x

[dotjhawkes]

In about 1993 I attended a one day seminar at Lancaster University run by the Department of Continuing Education there. It was split into 3 different sessions. One was about recordings made of women that had worked in the mills when they were teenagers and the women were now in their 80-s and 90s. That was very interesting and the women were very proud of how hard they had worked all their lives, and the families they had managed to raise.

There is a Library of Recorded History in Lancashire that has many many items of interest for research. I think it has moved to the Manchester Record Office now acyually.

[Famous5]

The British Library has oral history

Contact

British Library Sound Archive, 96 Euston Rd, London, NW1 2DB, Phone [phone]

or www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/history

[Peter Pedant]

Many thanks Dot, very helpful

[Peter Pedant]

Je vous remercie de vos informations, madame.

Je viens d'acheter la livre d' Amazon.france -

wow- cant really believe that......