Following the integration of the Key Stage Two (KS2; ages 7 - 11) Windrush Voices workshop into the British Library’s core schools programme, members of the Learning Team have been developing a workshop for Key Stage 3 (KS3; ages 11 - 14) learners. This uses a similar framework to the KS2 workshop, using the process of interactive listening to help engage learners with oral testimonies. The three extracts selected for the KS3 workshop are of Vanley Burke, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Andrea Levy, all discussing their experiences of school.

Vanley Burke on going to school in Britain as a child (BL reference C459/217) 

Download Vanley Burke on going to school in Britain as a child transcript

Linton Kwesi Johnson 'aspirations above my station' (BL reference C1276/60)

Download Linton Kwesi Johnson 'aspirations above my station' transcript

Andrea Levy on experiences at school (BL reference C1276/59)

Download Andrea Levy on experiences at school transcript

The rationale for this selection is that the theme is immediately relevant to the listeners, providing a point of connection and resonance with learners who are a similar age to the recollections in the clips. Before listening, learners are told some contextual information about the interviewees and for each one, asked to consider what they are expecting to hear. Following each clip, learners have a chance to reflect, thinking about what they heard, whether it was in line with their expectations, and whether there were any surprises, both in what was said and what was omitted. They are then encouraged to consider what follow-up questions they would like to have asked, further contributing to the interactive dynamic.

An additional aspect introduced for this workshop is to draw out similarities and differences between the extracts. This is a useful technique as it helps create an analytical framework and focused way of listening to and thinking about the extracts. On the surface, there are more obvious similarities between the experiences of Vanley Burke and Linton Kwesi Johnson, both encountering a system that had low expectations of Caribbean working-class Black boys. Vanley reflects that ‘it was like the wild west’ whilst Linton recalls being told by a careers advisor that he had ‘aspirations above his station.’

Vanley Burke. Image Courtesy of Birmingham Post & Mail, 2014

On first listen, Andrea Levy’s account provides clear differences, with her experiences sounding much more positive. At one point, she laughs as she recalls doing well in tests:

‘I’d come top and I just couldn’t believe it you know I just because you know I just couldn’t believe that I could I mean what were they doing you know I was not working hard…I I don’t I still don’t know quite you know, I thought, what’s happening?’

Andrea Levy © Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/ Alamy Stock Photo

Andrea speaks with a British accent (she was born in England in 1956), whilst Linton and Vanley both have Jamaican accents (arriving from Jamaica in 1963 and 1965 respectively), potentially further contributing to their outsider status and feelings of estrangement within the British education system. Hearing accents also speaks to the importance of playing the clips, as this would go undetected if the recordings were being read in class from a transcript rather than directly listened to. For some learners and teachers, hearing Jamaican accents might be simultaneously familiar to their own lives and unexpected in a classroom setting. Thus, oral history has the potential to help bring connections and meanings to learners’ lives, legitimising voices and experiences that, until relatively recently, haven’t always been visible in the historical record.

There are also some areas of similarity that might not be immediately obvious. Despite Andrea’s cheerful exterior, there are hints that she was also made to feel like she didn’t belong; for example, when she says ‘there were no other Black kids in my class’ and ‘I just didn’t mention Jamaica or anything.’  These examples suggest a connection to Vanley and Linton in that she also felt like an outsider but was more able to assimilate to fit in. Another similarity between Linton and Andrea can also be drawn in their deep appreciation of learning. Both discuss the subjects they enjoy, with Linton reflecting: ‘I always loved learning you know I had a very inquisitive mind I wanted to know. I had a thirst for knowledge.’  

Linton Kwesi Johnson. Image credit: Maria Nunes Photography

This is important as it suggests that whilst their external treatment and experiences were different, there is a clear connection in their internal attitude to and relationship with learning. This is underpinned in the first part of Linton’s extract when he says: ‘We all wanted to make something of our lives.’ A further similarity is that all three of the interviewees went on to have successful careers in the arts, with experiences of Caribbean migration playing a key role in Linton Kwesi Johnson’s poetry, Andrea Levy’s novels and Vanley Burke’s photography. 

Drawing out similarities and differences between extracts offers the chance to think more deeply about the recordings and find connections that might otherwise go unnoticed. The sheer number of items available at the British Library means there is sometimes a danger of trying to cover as much ground as possible through listening to as a wide range of recordings as possible. I would argue that less is more, and that there is deep educational value in listening to a small well-selected range of clips.  

It is important to note that the clips used are selected from a much longer interview. Andrea, Vanley and Linton recorded multi-session in-depth life story interviews for the British Library. This means that the clip doesn’t necessarily represent the entirety of their descriptions of their school and childhood experiences and it is entirely feasible that other parts of the interview could potentially contradict what is being said in these extracts.

Similarly, different people, including potentially Linton, Andrea and Vanley themselves, might well interpret the clip in different ways, especially if they have heard more expanded sections of the interview. This is not to diminish the experience of listening to a shorter edited clip. Rather, being mindful of the nature of the life story approach, with its focus on a full story as opposed to a single historical event, can make for richer conversations with learners, leading to a deeper understanding of different types of oral history.

Beyond the workshop, there are multiple opportunities to engage learners with the Library's Sound Archive, suggesting the applicability of oral history in the classroom for cross-curricular use. For example, in addition to English and History students studying aspects of migration and Empire through literature and sources, Photography students might want to explore Vanley Burke’s work and consider the extent to which his school experiences influenced his photography, or Politics and Citizenship students might want to consider the connection between art and activism.

Similarly, Sociology students might want to use the oral testimonies to examine ethnicity and achievement in relation to education, also drawing on other items in the British Library’s collection such as the work of Beryl Gilroy. Students studying for an Extended Project Qualification or Higher Project Qualification (student-driven research projects) might want to incorporate oral testimonies to help drive their enquiry question, strengthening their research skills and gaining confidence in handling sources within an archive.

Ultimately, this workshop and the selected recordings provide an excellent opportunity to engage learners with aspects of the collection and encourage wider engagement with audio testimony and sounds from the British Library to the classroom.

Thank you to all those involved in developing this work: members of the Learning Team at the British Library, Mary Stewart (Lead Curator, Oral History), and, crucially, to the interviewees themselves: Andrea Levy and Linton Kwesi Johnson (interviewed by Sarah O’Reilly for Authors’ Lives, 2014 – 15) and Vanley Burke (interviewed by Shirley Read for An Oral History of British Photography, 2014)

Blog by Debbie Bogard, Learning Facilitator in the British Library's Learning team.

Further Reading and Listening

Read 'Linton Kwesi Johnson awarded PEN Pinter Prize 2020' on the Sound and Vision Blog

Read 'Remembering Andrea Levy' on the English and Drama Blog

Read '"We’re not just passing through": how photographer Vanley Burke immortalised black Britain' on The Guardian

For more details on how the interactive listening approach can be used in the classroom, read Debbie's blog Authentic Encounters: Oral History in the Classroom Part 2 on the Oral History Society website.

Blog by Rosa Kurowska Kyffin, interviewer for National Life Stories.

Today, 7th March, would mark the 71st birthday of Rory Young: sculptor, stone carver, letterer, and building conservator, who sadly died in 2023. In the autumn of 2022, I had the opportunity to interview Rory for the National Life Stories collection Artists’ Lives. We arranged this interview following Rory’s terminal diagnosis earlier in the year and a concerted effort by his friends and family as well as the team at National Life Stories to ensure his memories were recorded for the archive.

Portrait of Rory Young at interview, by Rosa Kurowska Kyffin, October 2022.

The number of different professions that Rory Young mastered and the difficulty of finding one simple word for his work are evident in his many titles above. Indeed, Rory found it difficult to limit his focus to one career while having such a myriad of interests in the arts and built environment; he viewed himself, in his own words, as ‘an artificer’. His magical home – an early nineteenth-century stone town house, carefully restored over four decades and brimful with diverse works of art, objects and gifts from a wide network of beloved friends – speaks to this glowing interest he had in life and the world.

It was a difficult interview in some ways. His deteriorating health was an obvious factor, but also was the sheer scope of his view: it is hard to contain – even in many hours of recording – the variety of a life so richly lived. Rory burst with energy and ideas that sparked from one another, leading us forward or backwards decades at times; or leaping from debates on the nature of art/craft and the growth of conceptualism to anecdotes from his deep knowledge of architectural history; to lyrical descriptions of his work designing, limewashing, painting, carving. Sometimes recordings would be interrupted as he leapt up to dash off around the house to bring back an object or image for us to examine; thankfully, most times I managed to catch the microphone before he took our kit with him!

Rory was born and brought up close to Cirencester, his interview revealing a deep connection to the locale. His interest in both art and historic buildings was encouraged in childhood by his artist mother, Jill Young, who had trained at Wimbledon Art School in 1940s and who was inspired by Gerald Cooper, the Principal during her time there. She encouraged Rory and his sister Katrina by covering the walls of their home with paper for them to adorn and decorate. Jill Young hated the normal female pursuit of shopping in the town; instead, she spent time in the many historic buildings of Gloucestershire, educating her small children about the design and meaning of the architecture. This interest went to such an extent that Rory remembers, when just a small boy, his looking up at the ceiling in a local church and exclaiming ‘Look Mummy, fan vaulting!’, to the surprise of passers-by.

Later, during his study at Camberwell College of Arts in the 1970s, he became the youngest member of the Camberwell Preservation Society. This early interest developed into a passion for vernacular architecture. He saw the greenest way of building as restoring the old – thus lamenting the waste he saw as different fashions swept through architecture during his lifetime. This interest grew from his early days at Camberwell, when he would cycle around the desolate docks of East London, often at night, to sketch and paint the buildings being pulled down there.

Rory Young describing the London docks

Download London Docks transcript

Rory Young, Sketch for Thames-side Warehouse Demolition, 1976

As soon has he finished his studies, he pursued this fascination on a greater scale, embarking in 1976 on a two-year tour of the north of England, partly inspired by visiting the ‘Destruction of the Country House’ exhibition at the V&A. Living out of a van and recording meticulous notes and sketches, Rory travelled the length and breadth of England to visit the historic buildings and observe the industrial landscapes that were disappearing from England at that time. His descriptions of England at that intersection of the decline of heavy industry with the beginnings of a new market for heritage in the 1970s are a striking record of the time.

Rory’s fascination with buildings continued throughout his career. Creating works like the ‘Genesis Cycle’ at the west door of York Minster and the ‘Seven Martyrs’ for St Albans Cathedral, he saw himself adding layers of beauty in a century-spanning continuum of artists and craftspeople. His effort was to honour those buildings that formed the ‘biggest material evidence of our ancestors, of our past civilizations.’ He was, perhaps unsurprisingly, often frustrated with the contemporary art world’s conception of what constituted art: the move to conceptualism and resulting debates on the boundaries of art and craft did not align with his deeply held understanding of art that was not a snapshot of a moment, but of a record of long-lived history.

Rory Young on the nature of art

Download Nature of art transcript

Rory’s commitment to creating works of art that constituted ‘the huge broad sphere of the built environment’ did require huge effort, often over many years to achieve large commissions. We discussed the sheer physical toll of his output: working with stone or in clay; lifting and moving pieces or spending many hours deep in concentration carving a piece; the realities of stretching himself to finish jobs; and struggling when commissions went over time and budget. Despite these difficulties, it was clear that Rory found great joy in his work, a realisation he had from a young age when a chaplain had tried to help him understand the concept of heaven by pointing to the state of timeless concentration Rory would fall into when working on his artworks during school. This passion for work, friends, and beauty animated our time recording. I was inspired by such a vision: his lyrical, vivid way of speaking that meant he could explain history, as well as his own story, in his own words.

Rory Young on finding heaven in work

Download Heaven in work transcript

National Life Stories would like to extend our gratitude to all Rory’s friends and family for their dedication and support in raising the funds to record this interview.

Rory’s life history recording can be listened to on-site at the British Library (collection reference C466/425). Please contact the Listening and Viewing Service for more information.

On Christmas Eve 1818, Austrian priest Josef Mohr asked his church organist Franz Gruber to set a poem he had written to music. That evening during the Christmas Eve service ‘Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht’ had it’s first ever performance. The first English translation of the song, ‘Stilly Night, Holy Night’ was made in 1858 by Emily Elliott. Elliott was the daughter of an English clergyman, who started off writing hymns for her father’s church and went on to publish extensively under the pen name E. S. Elliott. A year later in America, Episcopal priest John Freeman Young published what has become the most commonly sung English-language translation.

This is the first recording of ‘Silent Night’, made in 1912 on Edison’s Blue Amberol, performed by soprano Elizabeth Spencer, tenor Harry Anthony and baritone James F. Harrison, accompanied by the Venetian Instrumental Quartet. The Edison Phonograph Monthly, a trade publication for the burgeoning market of recorded music, describes the trio number as ‘unsurpassed for beauty of harmony.’ In 1912 Christmas music hasn’t quite yet found it’s niche marketing value. Instead it’s classified as ‘sacred music’ and sits alongside a varied selection that includes opera, instrumental and popular band selections – advertised as a ‘great pot-pourri of Phonographic entertainment’.

A mere two years after this recording, on Christmas Day in 1914, British, French and German soldiers are said to have sung the carol in their respective languages during the famous World War I Christmas truce. 

You can listen to a larger selection of early wax cylinder Christmas songs put together on our Sound Cloud playlist Songs for Christmas.