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.

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. 

 

 

Portrait of W. J. Holloway, taken in 1893. Copyright National Portrait Gallery.

It is not often that you can hear the voice of someone born more than 180 years ago. Actor W. J. (William James) Holloway was born in Westminster in 1843 but at the age of thirteen his family decided to settle in Australia, a voyage on which his mother died. He took up acting in 1862 and the following year married, a union which produced four children. His second wife already had a daughter known as Essie Jenyns (1864-1920) whose talent Holloway developed - apparently driving her to fame as Australia’s greatest Shakesperean actress, and exhaustion. When she married brewery heir John Robert Wood in 1888 she gave up the stage altogether. The Holloways returned to England the following year and W. J. Holloway stood in for an indisposed Henry Irving by playing King Lear at the Lyceum in 1892 opposite Ellen Terry for a short period. His company continued to tour, most notably in South Africa, and he managed Terry’s Theatre in London from 1894. W. J. Holloway died at Clapham Common in 1913.

In 1909 Holloway made some speech recordings for the Odeon label. While many famous recordings exist from this period of great Shakesperean actors such as Lewis Waller, Sir Henry Beerbohm Tree and even private recordings of Henry Irving, these all display aspects of theatrical, declamatory delivery that sound almost risible to the modern listener. Holloway’s discs do not, and this may be because they were made with the object of reproducing the spoken English language in the clearest possible way for study purposes, rather than as a souvenir or an entertainment, as in the case of those mentioned above.

Holloway label, Seven Ages of Man

W. J. Holloway, Seven Ages of Man

 

Holloway label, Polonius's advice to his son

W. J. Holloway, Polonius's advice to his son

From a technical point of view and date of recording, the recorded sound is extremely clear and it seems that the discs were recorded in a special way developed by Wilhelm Doegen. I am indebted to Jolyon Hudson for unearthing the following information about this process.

Until the introduction of electrical recording in 1925, the recording process remained almost unchanged since its invention by Edison in 1877. Essentially, this process consisted of a horn, usually conical in shape, which funneled the sound to a recording diaphragm mounted at the horn's apex. Through a stylus, this diaphragm cut the groove into a wax master.

The energy available for cutting the record was limited to the small fraction of acoustic energy picked up by the horn. The experimental distance test recording that Nellie Melba made in 1910 vividly illustrates the reduction in amplitude and the loss of frequencies as she moved away from the horn.

In addition to this limitation, there was the difficulty of capturing both upper and lower frequencies, the distortion created by the mechanical process, and the significant challenge of recording sibilants.

We do not know exactly how Wilhelm Doegen achieved the enhanced recording quality in his work. However, a photograph of Doegen and fellow linguist Alois Brandl, taken in 1916 during the First World War at the Wahn prisoner-of-war camp as part of the Königlich Preußische Phonographische Kommission project to collect recordings of the languages and dialects of internees, provides a clue.

The internee is shown standing with his face very close to the recording horn, while Doegen holds the back of his neck with his left hand. In his right hand, Doegen holds a prepared text for the prisoner to read. As someone by then well-versed in achieving satisfactory speech recordings, Doegen presumably adjusted the prisoner’s head position relative to the horn, giving him greater control over the process. He may have pressed the prisoner’s head closer to the horn to emphasize sibilants or achieve better sound quality where the recording process was at its weakest sensitivity.

Doegen also developed a special gramophone for post war recordings, known as the Doegen Lautapparate. The gramophone, like his records, was produced by the Odeon company. It featured two separate reproducing horns connected to the tone arm and reproducer, or ‘sound box.’ One horn, made of wood, was directly connected to the tone arm, while the second horn, made of metal, was connected to the tone arm via a longer route through a metal tube.

The design had two main purposes: first, the faint sibilants reproduced through the metal horn would reverberate more, and second, the slight delay caused by the different horn lengths would create a subtle echo effect. It is possible that a similar arrangement was used in reverse for the recording process.

Outside of speech recording, none of Doegen’s improvements would have made any difference to the sound quality of music recordings, the mainstay of the recording industry then as now. Moreover, persuading artists to record under such conditions would have been virtually impossible.

Blog by Jonathan Summers and Jolyon Hudson 

We are deeply saddened to report the passing of Patrick Sellar who died in November at the age of 95.

Patrick Sellar co-founded the wildlife section in 1969 along with BBC natural history broadcaster Jeffery Boswall. Though Patrick never worked for the sound archive in an official capacity, he was a constant source of support, advice and ideas, without ever trying to control the direction of the section. He helped build the foundations of the collection which today is one of the largest and most comprehensive archives of wildlife and environmental sounds in the world. With connections across Europe, Asia and Africa made through a lifelong love of ornithology, Patrick played a pivotal role in obtaining so many of our most important natural history collections. He was well known for his excellent fieldcraft and experience of travelling in harsh environments, especially in Scandinavia and the Arctic, and was a popular figure among scientists, naturalists and broadcasters alike.

For me, Patrick was always there to offer advice and encouragement during my early days as a wildlife administrative assistant and especially when I took on the role of curator. His kind words and confidence in my abilities helped guide me through my first couple of years within the sound archive and I honestly don’t think I could have done it without his support.

We interviewed Patrick for the Oral History of Wildlife Sound Recording series and a couple of excerpts can be heard in this blog post recounting an expedition in 1981 to track down polar bears. He was a wonderful storyteller and I always enjoyed listening to his many tales.

He also regularly donated recordings to the collection and some of my favourites of his are accompanied by his evocative commentary, such as this example where he describes the beauty of Fair Isle while other visitors to the island are being attacked by a very angry seabird. Amazingly he remained unscathed.

Aside from his contributions to the wildlife section, Patrick was also one of the founding members of the International Bioacoustics Society (IBAC), becoming Honorary President in 2005. Since its inception in 1969, IBAC has grown from a handful of enthusiasts to a society of hundreds of scientists, naturalists and field recordists working on some of the most cutting edge research within the field of Zoology. He was a great travelling companion and we always travelled together to IBAC conferences, the last of which was in Brighton in 2019. Below is one of my favourite photos of Patrick, taken at the 25th IBAC conference in Murnau, Germany in 2015.

Patrick was a man of boundless optimism and enthusiasm, was never unkind and was always great company. He was rightly proud of how the wildlife section developed and was pleased to see how its remit and use expanded over the years, particularly in terms of education and the arts. He lived a full and rewarding life and will be deeply missed by all who knew him.

Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wildlife and Environmental Sounds

Poster advertising the launch of the first National Lottery draw on the 19th Novemeber 1994. Image by Jonathan Player

This November we’re celebrating the National Lottery’s 30th Birthday! For three decades now the National Lottery has been a driving force behind countless heritage projects across the UK. With the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s generous support the sound archive have been able to preserve, catalogue and share many collections for the nation to enjoy now and in the future.

The Lottery have supported multiple National Life Stories projects over the years, helping to both record and archive interviews to add to the sound archive collections. In particular, with their support, the sound archive have preserved a cluster of collections documenting the experiences of people living with, or personally impacted by, HIV. These include powerful testimonies of those living with HIV and oral histories of healthcare workers who cared for people with HIV at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s.

The impact of these oral histories has been far-reaching. For example, two collections[i] have been used as evidence in the ongoing Infected Blood enquiry. Selected recordings have also been used in a BBC documentary series entitled AIDS: The Unheard Tapes, which tells the story of the HIV epidemic in the UK from the early 1980s until the mid 1990s as experienced by the UK’s gay community. The documentary uses the audio from the archived interviews with each narrator's voice lip-synched for television by an actor. You can read more about this process and the collections in this blog post: Putting AIDS the Unheard Tapes in context. 

Another unique collection to highlight is the Pinnacle Club for Women Climbers collection. The Pinnacle Club is a national women’s climbing club founded in 1921 – and to commemorate the club’s centenary year, and with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, they recorded oral history interviews with 24 past and present members. These have all now been archived here at the British Library. The oral histories reach back to memories from the 1940s and 50s, recalling a time when opportunities for, and expectations of, women were restricted. Many spoke of being frustrated by the limitations of girls’ education at the time, and low expectations of women’s athletic performance. When the club was established climbing was a very male dominated activity, but clubs like the Pinnacle Club allowed women to find like-minded female climbing partners and climb unhindered by the stereotypes of the day.

We cannot celebrate the National Lottery’s birthday without mentioning a major project that they made possible: Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH), a UK-wide initiative to preserve, digitise, catalogue, and copyright clear the most vulnerable recordings across the United Kingdom. It is widely acknowledged that the formats in which sounds have been stored throughout history – such as wax cylinders, vinyl, reel-to-reel, and cassette – will one day become inaccessible as they age, making them inaudible and inaccessible. By acquiring cutting edge technology, and setting up centres of expertise across the country, the project digitally preserved at-risk collections, ensuring the voices and sounds they hold are not lost forever.  It garnered wide support, not least from the nation’s favourite conservationist, David Attenborough.

The project digitised over 115,000 physical items, generating over 368,000 recordings, which were then catalogued. These recordings and collections ranged widely in their content and format. One exciting example is the Glastonbury New Bands Collection, consisting of more than 4600 demo tapes. In the early 2000’s Glastonbury ran a competition for unsigned acts, with the prize being the chance to perform on one of the festival’s main stages. The Emerging Talent Competition, launched in 2004 as the Glastonbury Festival Unsigned Performers Competition, is still part of the annual festival today. From 2010 onwards applications were processed online but up until 2009 emerging acts had to physically compile an application bundle consisting of an entry form, a biography and a demo CD. Thousands of demos found their way to Glastonbury; offering a contemporary witness of the music created at the beginning of the 21st century by unsigned bands and musicians in Britain and beyond. They also provide a valuable representation of youth and DIY culture at the turn of the century, captured through the demo designs and song lyrics.

Listening desk by Emily Peasgood

If you’re interested in hearing some of the recordings digitised by the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project – why not visit the Listening Desk at our St Pancras site? A cross between a gramophone horn, a desk, and a touch screen, the sound sculpture allow users to engage with sound in a fun and playful way. It’s located on the upper ground floor, outside of the King’s Library. Or if you’d like to explore some of our digitised recordings from the comfort of your own home, then download our podcast All About Sound. Hosted by author and poet Lemn Sissay, with a range of special guests including Shami Chakrabarti and Kae Tempest, it explores a variety of contemporary issues through archival sound recordings.

[i] ‘Haemophilia and HIV Life History Project’ and ‘HIV in the Family: an oral history of parents, partners and children of those with haemophilia’.