Oral History, Where do You Start?

Oral history is about recording someone's own words about what has happened in their lives or it could be a recording of their views and recollections of a specific event in history. In this podcast specially recorded for the Heritage Open Days 2021 festival, we cover how to approach recording oral history, what to think about before you start, what is involved if you decide to deposit them in an archive and we also offer some top tips, as well as some, must do's and don'ts in recording.

Our guest, Padmini Broomfield, talks us through the very practical steps involved in recording oral histories and all the considerations that need to be made to get the most out of your recordings. Padmini also tells us where you can access oral histories and where you can deposit your own recordings. She also shares with us a few of the projects she has worked on and the lessons she has learned along the way.

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Padmini Broomfield

Padmini Broomfield is a freelance Oral History & Heritage Consultant. She has produced audio content for exhibitions at various museums in Hampshire and southeast England, based on her recordings with people working at the Southampton Ford Transit factory, Southampton Football Club, cruise liners and other local industries. She is co-author of Thorny’s: an oral history of Vosper Thornycroft shipyard Southampton and Here Look After Him: voices of Basque evacuee children of the Spanish Civil War.

Audio units

Visitors to ‘Portal’ on Wide Lane, Southampton, can listen to audio clips using the manually powered ‘U-Turn Round’ audio boxes.

Public artwork

‘Portal’ on Wide Lane, Southampton, on the former Ford Transit plant site, inspired by recorded memories of ex-employees.

‘Here Look After Him’

Based on oral history interviews, the book tells the story of Los Niños, the Basque child evacuees of the Spanish Civil War, who arrived in Southampton in 1937.

Audio posts

Visitors to the ruins of Holy Rood Church Southampton can listen to clips from oral history recordings held at Southampton Archives, including memories of the pre-war church and the night it was bombed in 1940.

Titanic memories

An audio post by the crew memorial in Holy Rood Church plays extracts from recordings of local people remembering the 1912 disaster and its impact on Southampton.

Ford Transition pop-up museum

Housed in 3 shipping containers on the old Ford site in Swaythling, the exhibition included a cinema, audio-visuals, archival film along with photographs and artefacts loaned by interviewees, and artwork and interactives created by volunteers.

Ford Transition pop-up museum

The story of the changing industrial history of the former Ford Transit plant site in Southampton, told through the voices of people who had worked in the aviation, motor and other manufacturing factories that once stood there.

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Further Information and Additional Links

You can follow Padmini on Twitter @guptgargi, and contact her via her LinkedIn.

For further information on this topic, it is probably best to start on the Oral History Society website. However, we have also listed below, with the help of Padmini Broomfield, other useful links and publications.

Links:

• Ford Transition Project
  To watch the film, listen to oral history clips or download learning resources visit the website at: https://www.fordtransition.org.uk/

• ‘Portal’
  Public artwork on Wide Lane Southampton inspired by interviews with former Ford employees: https://aspacearts.org.uk/public-art/portal-southampton

• Los Niños – child exiles of the Spanish Civil War
  The project: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/ctns/projects/los_ninos.page
  Online exhibition: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/archives/exhibitions/online/basques.page

• Mayflower 400 Southampton
  Audio extracts from recordings of migration stories: https://mayflower400southampton.co.uk/events-and-workshops/oral-histories/

• SeaCity Museum Southampton
  Exhibits, audio-visuals, sound posts and art installations using oral histories.

Publications:

• Further publications & bibliographies at: www.ohs.org.uk/advice/publications/

• Perks, Robert & Thomson, Al (eds.), The Oral History Reader, 3rd ed., London, Routledge 2016.

• Ritchie, Don, Doing Oral History, 3rd edition, New York, 2015.

• Thompson, P., with Bornat, J., The Voice of the Past: Oral History, fourth edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016.

• Yow, Valerie Raleigh, Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 3rd ed. Alta Mira Press, 2014.