Tag Archives: oral history

Essex Sounds Like…

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For the past six months, we have been surveying people across Essex to ask them what they know about the Essex Sound and Video Archive (ESVA). The main aim of the exercise was to collect baseline data, so we will have some statistics to compare with similar surveys we plan to run after the You Are Hear: sound and a sense of place project. We hope this will demonstrate the impact of the project to the Heritage Lottery Fund, and that more people will be aware of us and have engaged with our treasure store of recordings.

We surveyed our long-suffering readers in the Searchroom, so frequently asked for feedback; visitors to events that we attended; and innocent passers-by who happened to be walking through High Chelmer Shopping Centre, Chelmsford on Saturday 1 March. We even roped in the aid of libraries and village agents to distribute our surveys. The end result was 185 surveys completed by people from near and far (even some from outside Essex snuck in).

Our main aim was to establish how many people had heard of the Essex Sound and Video Archive. Forty percent of the people who answered this question knew about the ESVA but had never used it, but another 54% had not even heard of us. We obviously have some work to do!

We collected demographic information about our participants, but we also took the opportunity to ask some more interesting questions about people’s perceptions of where they live.  Eighty-six percent of participants felt they belonged to some kind of community: mostly their town or village, but social or religious groups, neighbourhoods, and on-line communities also featured. Despite a few references to the stereotypes associated with Essex (thanks largely to a certain ITV television programme), most people had positive associations with the county. Several referred to it as home or felt rooted to it by family ties. Some mentioned its attractive features, such as the seaside, the countryside, the good travel links – and the fact that it’s not London. We hope to build on this  undercurrent of pride in the county by sharing what former residents have felt about their homeland, what they experienced, and what they felt moved to create in it.

The most interesting question to me was, ‘Which sounds represent where you live?’ Although it initially puzzled a few people, we eventually got some wonderful descriptions of the aural landscape of the county. The overwhelming majority of the responses were precisely what I would have identified in my own town: Essex sounds like traffic and birds.

We created a word cloud from all of the responses received: the bigger the word, the more times it was mentioned. How does the picture compare with your location?

sounds wordcloud aug 2014

Wordcloud of sounds associated with Essex, created with www.wordle.net

In the spirit of You Are Hear, we have a sound clip alternative:

At the moment the clip is just the words spoken aloud: the recording of the actual sounds will come once the project starts, with your help.

Thank you to everyone who completed a survey or helped to distribute them. Get in touch if you want to read more about the results.

Recording of the Month, September 2014: Mrs Cranwell’s Driving Test

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Our Sound Archivist Martin Astell brings us another highlight from the Essex Sound and Video Archive…

SA 47/1/1/4/1

This month’s recording highlights the principal joy of working with oral history. That is, the fact that it is about people. Everybody has a story to tell, but some tell them better than others. Mrs Irene Cranwell from the village of Chrishall in Essex falls into the category of characters whose personality bursts out of the recorded interview, and in this extract she describes her somewhat unusual driving test in Cambridge.

Irene Cranwell died in 2010 at the age of 99, having become a local celebrity through regular contributions to a BBC Cambridgeshire radio show. She had been a teacher at Chrishall village school and later worked at Barkway First School and Icknield Walk First School in Royston. She also, apparently, had an impressive knowledge of local history and started a museum in Chrishall based on her own collection.

When listening to oral history interviews we should not forget the contribution of the interviewer who, in this case, has created a relaxed and congenial atmosphere, allowing the interviewee to express herself in a free and uninhibited manner.

You Are Hear: project update

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Sarah-Joy Maddeaux, Project Officer for You Are Hear, writes for us about one unexpected aspect of her recent work…

HLF Logo Colour

An unanticipated result of the development work for our Heritage Lottery Funded project, You Are Hear: sound and a sense of place, has been the number of new accessions it has prompted to flow into the repository of the Essex Sound and Video Archive.

I have spent most of the last four months investigating the copyright status of our collections, to establish which we will be able to use for our project. As I sort through the paperwork and get in touch with depositors of five, ten, or twenty years ago, this has served as a reminder of our existence. We have received recordings from people who have been busy creating new material since their last deposits, for example additional videos about Ongar from David Welford (Accession Number SA715 to add to five earlier deposits) and a new batch of oral history interviews from the Ongar Millennium History Society (Accession Numbers SA712 and SA713). Artists have given us final versions of earlier recordings, for example a fully printed and slightly amended CD from the Arts Action East and Arts in Essex African Lullaby Project, created by Julia Usher and Anna Mudeka to capture and create lullabies used by mothers in Essex from a range of cultural backgrounds (original Accession Number SA592).

African Lullaby Project

Having recently visited the tea rooms and museum at Wilkin and Sons jam factory in Tiptree, I was particularly interested in an interview with John S Wilkin, then Director of the company and grandson of the founder, recorded in 1986, shortly after the company’s centenary. We had received a copy of a similar interview in 1993, but unfortunately it was of such poor quality that it was not worth keeping. Thanks to Mr Wilkin’s widow, we now have a replacement. In an interview for Radio Colchester, Mr Wilkin explains the story behind the foundation of the company, its gradual growth, and the different stages of production. Although at the time of the interview they were in the height of strawberry season, they had abandoned the strawberries in order to complete an ‘urgent’ order of peach jam for Germany. Let nothing stand between a man and his condiment of choice.

What piece of Essex heritage will come through our doors next?

(Please note that these new recordings cannot be accessed by researchers until access copies have been created. To express an interest in hearing these recordings, please contact us on ero.enquiry@essex.gov.uk)

Recording of the Month April 2014: ‘I didn’t want medals’ – One man’s experience of the First World War

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Our Sound Archivist Martin Astell brings us another highlight from the Essex Sound and Video Archive…

SA 24/1011/1

This month we have extracts from a talk given in 1992 by Alf Webb who had served as a machine gunner in the First World War. The recording from which these extracts are taken is an incredible resource. Alf Webb was talking to a group of school children and his recollections of both the mundane detail and the harsh reality of the war are delivered in a matter-of-fact and unflinching way (perhaps surprising given the audience) as he talks about mud and lice, tactics and trenches, the death of friends and colleagues, and his own unheroic attitude towards the war as he did his best to ‘try and survive and get out of this.’

If you are interested in finding further resources held in the Essex Sound and Video Archive which relate to the First World War, a sources list is available.

We will be hearing a great deal about the First World War over the centenary period, but few things will bring us closer to understanding the reality of events than to hear the experiences, thoughts and authentic voices of people who actually lived through them.

Sharing Our History: Marconi in Chelmsford

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On Wednesday 7 November, the ERO is hosting a University of Essex event focusing on the centenary of the opening of Marconi’s famous Chelmsford factory…

Do you have memories of working at or with Marconi?  As part of the Festival of Social Science, the University of Essex is hosting an oral history event to commemorate Guglielmo Marconi, and the centenary of the opening of the world’s first purpose-built radio factory in New Street in Chelmsford.

Marconi, who is often credited with being the inventor of radio, first established his company in a former silk works in Hall Street in Chelmsford in 1898. But this soon became too small for his expanding operation, and in February 1912 work began on the 70,000 square foot factory in New Street. The works were opened in June that year. 

Eight years later the factory played host to the first experimental wireless broadcast, which featured Dame Nellie Melba singing two arias. The signal was received throughout Europe and as far away as Newfoundland, Canada.

Marconi's New Street factory

Marconi’s New Street factory

This free event is open to all, for people wanting to find out more about Marconi the man and the technological advances he made, as well as those who worked for Marconi, or who had relatives who worked there, to come along to share and record their memories.

Chaired by Martin Astell, Sound Archivist at the Essex Record Office, the event will feature a film and short talks by Peter Turrall, Chairman of the Marconi Veterans’ Association, who will talk about Marconi the man and how he came to be in Chelmsford, and Dr Geoff Bowles, curator of the Sandford Mill Museum, who will talk about the collection of Marconi artefacts which are held there.

Members of the audience will also be asked to share memories of Marconi’s history in Chelmsford.

Afterwards there will be free tea and cakes and a small exhibition relating to Marconi. A film crew will be on hand and those who wish to do so will be asked to take part in interviews which will then be placed on a website to form a lasting record of the event.

Entry is free and no booking is required: if you have any queries please email events@essex.ac.uk or phone 01206 872400

Wednesday 7 November 2.30-4.30pm

Essex Record Office, Wharf Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 6YT

Women at work in the Marconi factory

Women at work in the Marconi factory

Men at work in the Marconi factory

Men at work in the Marconi factory