Guest blog post by Dr Anna Cole, Heritage Lead, Rape Crisis England and Wales with input from Dr Ellie Whittingdale, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University.

The Rape Crisis movement emerged in the UK just over 50 years ago, in the early 1970s. It can be contextualised within broader histories of liberation activism at the time and rose in large part from consciousness-raising women’s circles of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Talking and listening to one another in this way, women realised the endemic nature of sexual violence in society and began to raise public awareness of the issue, while also building from scratch the first support services for survivors.

Photo courtesy of Anna Cole. 

A recently completed ground-breaking national oral ‘herstory’ project records life stories from across the Rape Crisis network. Rape Crisis: Herstories and Futures of the Movement was created with National Life Stories at the British Library in collaboration with Rape Crisis England and Wales, a national feminist charity working to end child sexual abuse, rape and other forms of sexual violence, and the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University. All oral herstory interviews are now complete and a new oral history archive is soon to be lodged with the British Library Sound Archive in perpetuity. The archive will be publicly available in early 2027.

Photo courtesy of Anna Cole. 

The sound archive is made up of life-story interviews and group interviews with over 35 women from across the rape crisis movement. A sampling frame was devised with input from current Rape Crisis centre members through an active Heritage Peer Space. Interviewees were selected based on five key axes: region, age, role, ethnic identity, and whether remaining within or now left the movement. Today’s stark statistics speak to the ongoing necessity for this work, the still too often hidden nature of sexual violence in our society, and the ongoing challenges in the criminal justice system to effectively address it: 71,227 rapes were recorded by police in 2024, and by the end of that year charges had been brought in just 2.7% of these cases.  And these figures only account for cases reported to the police; statistics collated by Rape Crisis England and Wales indicate that the majority of instances of rape or sexual assault are never formally reported. 

Photo courtesy of Anna Cole.

‘Herstory: 50 Years of Rape Crisis’ is a new four-part podcast series which has drawn its themes and stories from the testimony recorded in the ‘oral herstory’ project’. The four episodes trace the heritage of the Rape Crisis movement in England and Wales — as remembered by the women who built, shaped, and lived it. Activists, founders, staff, volunteers, and survivors come together to share moments, memories, and reflections. What unfolds is not a complete history, but a deeply felt, personal - and political - one, a window into the movement’s roots, its evolution, and the futures these women imagine. This first national oral ‘herstory’ of the Rape Crisis movement project was made possible by funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the generous support of National Lottery players.

Episode 1: The Dream

In the 1970s and 1980s, a generation of women dared to speak the unspeakable and demanded a better life for women. This episode follows the birth of the Rape Crisis movement in Britain. Founders, volunteers, and current staff reflect on the feminist ideals that drove these women, and the tension between activism and survival as they built a service from scratch, in the face of silence and stigma.

Episode 2: Along the Way

As the movement matured, so did its internal and external challenges. In this episode, women reflect on the struggle to stay rooted in feminist values while navigating power structures, limited resources, and growing demand. They speak candidly about what true inclusivity means, the emotional toll, and the ongoing pressure of managing long waiting lists.

Episode 3: Holding the Line

Today, Rape Crisis centres fight for survival amid austerity and competitive tendering. Workers talk about burnout, underfunding, and why survivor-centred care is still worth fighting for, even as efforts to professionalise the service bring both benefits and tensions. The shift away from relying on volunteers — once the backbone of the movement — is felt deeply across the sector.

Episode 4: What Now?

What’s next? From social enterprises to policy change, women explore new ways to sustain the movement. This episode highlights the role of Rape Crisis England & Wales as the national body seeking to support member centres and campaign for lasting change — and why ending sexual violence remains the ultimate goal.

'Herstory: 50 years of Rape Crisis' is a four-part podcast series by producers Riham Moussa and Mary Holditch for Rape Crisis: Herstories and Futures of the Movement.

Listen on the Rape Crisis website

Listen on Acast 

Visit the Rape Crisis England and Wales website for more information.

In July – in a first for the British Library Oral History team – we held a reflective listening session at a major UK agricultural event: Groundswell. Now in its ninth year, Groundswell Regenerative Agriculture Festival takes place each summer at Lannock Farm in Hertfordshire, providing a forum for anyone interested in food production and the environment to learn about the theory and practice of regenerative agriculture.

Inside the Workshop Tent. Photo: Angela Cassidy.

In the Workshop Tent, Paul Merchant and Mary Stewart (Oral History, The British Library) and Angela Cassidy (University of Exeter) played audio extracts from two National Life Stories collections: ‘An Oral History of Farming, Land Management and Conservation in Post-War Britain’ (generously supported by Arcadia) and ‘Oral Histories of Environmental Collaboration’ (recorded in partnership with the NERC funded RENEW Programme at the University of Exeter). With some trepidation at the size of the venue for the listening session, we were utterly delighted that 160 farmers, researchers, agricultural advisers, ecologists and others duly pitched up with open ears to listen and respond together to 12 excerpts from the in-depth oral histories.

In one of the audio clips, historical geographer John Sheail reflects on attempts by ecologists and agricultural scientists to bridge the working worlds of farming and environment in the 1980s and 1990s:

John Sheail on beginnings of positive relations between ecologists and scientists

Download John Sheail_transcript

In another, co-founder of Groundswell John Cherry speaks of his joy at seeing farmland birds return to fields under ‘no-till’ (no-ploughing) systems:

John Cherry on the return of farmland birds to no till fields

Download John Cherry_transcript

John Cherry (right) with Paul Merchant outside the Workshop Tent. Photo: Mary Stewart.

In the session’s final extract, Northern Ireland farmer John Rankin reminds us to listen to earlier generations as we experiment with farming systems fit for the future:

John Rankin on learning from past farming practice

Download John Rankin_transcript

John Rankin and sister in the 1960s (top) and John Rankin’s father and grandfather in 1933 (bottom). Courtesy of Ian Rankin.

These and other audio clips – many of which you can listen to on a British Library Soundcloud playlist – prompted much thought and discussion. The hubbub of conversation in the Workshop Tent after we played each cluster of clips was amazing to experience and we are convinced of the role of oral history in helping to shape agricultural-environmental practice and policy in the present and future. The session at Groundswell is one in a series of interactive sessions in summer 2025 as part of an AHRC Impact Accelerator Award (University of Exeter Translational Funding). We are currently assessing how NLS can raise further funds for interviewing and outreach in this subject area.

Sounds of soil sign. Photo: Paul Merchant.

Elsewhere at Groundswell, other kinds of listening experience were on offer. Following the sign in the photograph, we found ourselves listening to subterranean sounds of soil biology recorded by researchers at Rothamsted Research and a number of universities.

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Paul Merchant, Mary Stewart (National Life Stories, The British Library)
Angela Cassidy, Eleanor Hadley Kershaw (RENEW Programme, University of Exeter)

Earlier this year, the Library was delighted to host a series of recording sessions with the four co-editors of Clod Magazine. For those of you who don't already know, Clod is an independent magazine, founded in Luton in 1987, and now approaching its 40th issue. It appears irregularly, with publication ceasing entirely for seven years at one point. ‘No one noticed’, says their Facebook page.

The Clod editors moonlight as members of a similarly long-established music group called the Knockouts. While the magazine has its origins in the indie music fanzine scene of the 1980s, and maintains a DIY cut-and-paste aesthetic, it is not much concerned with music - and is not itself a fanzine.

Rather than music, the substance here is art, humour, and a decidedly prickly and surreal form of social comment. If the Vorticist artist and writer Wyndham Lewis had lived in South Bedfordshire in the second half of the twentieth century, he might well have come up with something like Clod. As with Wyndham Lewis’s provocative journal Blast, Clod has a penchant for morally upbraiding its readership through didactic and slightly deranged polemics. 

2024 saw the publication of the collected Clod Magazine issues 1-21 in one bumper 660pp volume. Early issues are out-of-print and impossible to find so this initiative was very welcome. I’m pleased to say the Library has acquired a copy for its collection.

It seemed a good time to conduct some interviews on the history of the magazine and to record some readings and, happily, everybody agreed to participate.

ABOVE Clod editors, clockwise from top left: Stephen Whiting; Tim Kingston; Andy Whiting; Andrew Kingston.

The readings were drawn not just from Clod but from a range of related publications, including the short-lived football fanzine TOWN, and Tim Kingston’s 1998 book Kenilworth Sunset? A Luton Town supporter’s journal. We also recorded a selection from the long-running ‘Luton Haiku’ series (five volumes published to date) and some of Andrew Kingston’s non-Clod solo works.

An exciting exclusive was Andy Whiting’s very funny account of the pleasures of following Hitchin Town FC (aka the Canaries). All being well, this should be published in Clod 40.

Here is a short extract from the recordings. This is Stephen Whiting reading from Clod 36: We queue up for boiled fish

ABOVE hand-stamped embellishments are a common feature.