oral history recordings | Oral History’s Design

NT property recommendations for PhD placement

Hannah James Louwers

21 June 2023

Questions to ask

Would you have good access to the local people who might know of the interviewees?

Are you looking to show how NT should do oral history projects or how they should handle collections of older recordings stuck on shelves?

Properties

Alderley Edge Landscape

Location: Cheshire

Notes on property: They only have two full time rangers and it is a landscape property, not a house so it is unlikely they will have a collections team.

No. of recordings: 80

Main interviewers: John Ecclestone

Date of recordings: Late 1990s – early 2000s

Copyright statues: 17 recordings have copyright and there are a handful of orphan works. Copyright is confusing here, there seems to be focus on getting copyright from the interviewers.

Notes on recordings: Big project in collaboration with the Manchester Museum. There are also several lectures. It also has a website: Alderley Edge Landscape Project (derbyscc.org.uk)

Hannah’s recommendation: It is one of the biggest projects but because the property is unlikely to have a collections team, you will have no one to champion the work.

Attingham Park

Location: Shropshire

Notes on property: An 18^th-century estate. Property ‘Trust’ property. BIG!

No. of recordings: 43

Main interviewers: Edward Payne, Michael Ford, John Ecclestone

Date of recordings: 1960s – 2000s

Notes on recordings: These recordings came in tranche 5, which was all CDs, many copied from original tapes. Note that some recordings in tranche 5 might be duplicates of recordings in tranche 1.

Hannah’s recommendation: A lot of recordings taking over a very long period of time. I imagine this might be a difficult one.

Basildon Park

Location: Berkshire

Notes on property: Big 18-century estate. Very ‘Trust’

No. of recordings: 12

Main interviewers: Mary Turton

Date of recordings: 1980s – 2000s

Notes on recordings: Many different interviewers

Hannah’s recommendation: A small set of recording which might be more manageable for a three month project.

Biddulph Grange Gardens

Location: Straffordshire

Notes on property: It is a garden, so they are unlikely to have collection staff.

No. of recordings: 48

Main interviewers: John Ecclestone, Michael Ford, Bill Malecki

Date of recordings: 1980s – 2000s

Notes on recordings: Bill Malecki is also the garden and was interviewed

Hannah’s recommendation: This collection might be too big for the three month placement and I am not sure of the staff set up on site. You are likely to have to work with the regional curator.

Blicking Hall

Location: Norfolk

Notes on property: Jacobean mansion with big garden.

No. of recordings: 18

Main interviewer: Nick Ross

Date of recordings: 1980s, and one in 1990

Notes on recordings: Nick Ross did all his recordings in 1986-1987. There is one recording of 11^th Marquis of Lothian which was recorded during WW2.

Hannah’s recommendation: Small collection but recorded a long time ago which might make things difficult.

Calke Abbey

Location: Derbyshire

Notes on property: Home and estate.

No. of recordings: 41

Main interviewers: Kerry Usher

Date of recordings: 1980s – 1990s (most are unknown)

Notes on recordings: Only five recordings were not recorded by Kerry Usher

Hannah’s recommendation: This one could be very easy if the property just forgot to give the copyright forms or it will be very difficult.

Clent Hills

Location: Worcestershire

Notes on property: It is a walking route and not an estate, so will not have a collection team

No. of recordings: 11

Main interviewers: Tamsin Mosse

Date of recordings: 2009-2010

Notes on recordings: These were recorded onto CDs from a Flash Memory Card by John Ecclestone in 2010

Hannah’s recommendation: A more recent one which might make things easier and make up for the fact it is a walking route and not an estate

Clumber Park

Location: Nottinghamshire

Notes on property: Park with a walled garden, a chapel, and ornamental bridge.

No. of recordings: 14

Main interviewers: Leah Lawman, Alistair McDougal

Date of recordings: 1990-91

Notes on recordings: Classic project run in the early 1990s by the looks of it.

Hannah’s recommendation: Could be a good case study because it is clearly a case of an oral history project, which is how many of the NT oral histories will be collected

Coughton Court

Location: Warwickshire

Notes on property: A tudor house in Warwickshire. Classic NT and probably very popular

No. of recordings: 13

Main interviewers: Michael Ford

Date of recordings: 1970s -1980s

Notes on recordings: This is a classic early oral history project for NT. Robin Bryer and Michael Ford did some of the earliest recordings for the Trust. Also this one is likely to have duplicates in tranche 5, because tranche 5 consists of CDs made from cassettes. I suspect BL might have some of the original cassettes.

Hannah’s recommendation: It is a classic NT oral history project and will be a good example of how to handle material from project long gone by rather than be a good example of how to do contemporary projects.

Dudmaston

Location: Shropshire

Notes on property: Country house still lived in

No. of recordings: 14

Main interviewers: Bill Gatter, Jeremy Milln, Sarah Kay

Date of recordings: 1980s-2010s

Notes on recordings: John Ecclestone worked as sound recordings on most interviews. Originally recorded on mini disc but the BL only has the CDS from tranche 5. (Yes, someone was recoding on mini disc in 2012).

Hannah’s recommendation: It is a small collection recorded over a wide period of time and none have copyright.

Dunham Massey

Location: Cheshire

Notes on property: Garden, deer park, and a house

No. of recordings: 70

Main interviewers: Peter Lee, James Rothwell

Date of recordings: 1980s – 1990s

Copyright status: One big chunk does have copyright, another chuck have no accession forms, and there are some that have the reuse forms which do not include the word copyright.

Notes on recordings: Many different interviewers.

Hannah’s recommendation: Big collection with everything present but it might be too big for a three month project

Hardwick Hall

Location: Derbyshire

Notes on property: Classic ‘Trust’

No. of recordings: 25

Main interviewers: Tim Whittaker, Alistair McDougal

Date of recordings: 1980s-1990s

Notes on recordings: Possibly two different oral history projects one in the 1980s and one in the 1990s

Hannah’s recommendation: A classic Trust property with an average amount of recordings.

Monk’s House

Location: East Sussex

Notes on property: Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s 16th-century country retreat. Smaller property

No. of recordings: 12

Main interviewers: Patricia Tate, Malcolm Billings

Date of recordings: 1990s

Notes on recordings: Patricia Tate is likely to have died or be over 100 years old. There are also a lot of radio recordings for this property

Hannah’s recommendation: A smaller property and collection might be more manageable

Osterley Park

Location: London

Notes on property: House and parkland

No. of recordings: 18

Main interviewers: Jean Price, Gwyneth Learner, Lucy Tusa

Date of recordings: 1989 – 2000s

Notes on recordings: Jean Price recorded in 1989, Gwyneth Learner in the 1990s and Lucy Tusa in the 2000s

Hannah’s recommendation: A London based property might mean you are able to go and rummage around their cupboards for copyright forms. Also an average sized collection made of three bouts of recordings.

Powis Castle

Location: Powys, Wales

Notes on property: Medieval Castle (not very Trust)

No. of recordings: 21

Main interviewers: Michael Wynne Griffith

Dates of recordings: UNKNOWN

Notes on recordings: A very messy collection. Many of the interviews do not have an interviewer noted in the catalogue

Hannah’s recommendation: A challenge

West Wycombe Village and Hill

Location: Buckinghamshire

Notes on property: Mansion and parkland

No. of recordings: 19

Main interviewers: Olga Macdonald, Alison and Peter Gieler

Dates of recordings: 1990s – 2010s

Notes on recordings: Olga was later interviewed in the more recent project. I suspect the more recent project was run by volunteers.

Hannah’s recommendation: The first project does not have copyright sorted but they clearly have sorted everything out for their more recent project. They might be easy to work with if they are familiar with oral history already.

To date I have collected ten oral history interviews with a wide range of people associated with Seaton Delaval Hall, from former residents to National Trust staff and volunteers. Overall, the experience has been positive for both myself and those I have interviewed. I have enjoyed listening to their stories and many have told me after the interview how much they enjoyed the experience. It is important to note I am recording under Newcastle University and not the National Trust. This means I need to follow the university’s ethics and data protection policies. However, during my three-month placement at Seaton Delaval Hall and my efforts to get the recordings archived, I developed a better understanding how recording oral history within the National Trust works.

If you type oral history into Acorn you get “the guide to setting up an oral history project.” Although sadly many of the links to other Trust oral history projects are dead-links, the guide gives a good foundation to recording oral history. The emphasis of working with The British Library and getting training from the Oral History Society which can be paid for by the Sir Laurie Magnus Bursary is great. I have come across many oral history projects where archiving is very much treated as an afterthought, so it is refreshing to see how the guide encourages working with an archivist throughout an oral history project. However, both the guide and the current permissions and copyright assignment form, which is to be used for archiving the recordings at the British Library, are not completely up to date with regards to data protection and the copyright assignment. There is little to no mention of GDPR and the copyright assignment looks a little too simple if compared to what copyright, data protection and licensing experts, Naomi Corn Associates, currently advise.

It is also important to point out that in the guide there is no mention of the ethical issues you need to consider when recording oral history, only a small paragraph on what to do in case the interviewee gets upset. Because I am recording oral histories via Newcastle University I had to go through thorough ethical approval. There is no such process within the National Trust.

Another slightly out of date element is the storing of the oral history recordings before they are archived. The guide focuses on an electronic cascading file system, which is fine. But it does not discuss the devices where these files need to be stored and I am pretty confident that the way the National Trust stores its files has clearly changed since the writing of this guide. I contacted the data protection office and they informed me that an oral history recording and its accompanying metadata needs to be stored on SharePoint for data protection reasons. This seems completely logical, only I was also informed by IT that they would prefer it if people did not have large WAV files on SharePoint because this interferes with the Trust’s carbon neutrality aims. I would also like to note that the archivists I have talked to emphasise that a digital file only exists if it is stored in three different places with at least one of them not being cloud based. There is therefore a slight conflict between data protection and IT, although I was later offered to upload my WAV files to the Seaton Delaval Hall SharePoint, after I mentioned this issue to a member of staff.

In addition to dissecting the Trust’s guide to oral history I have become familiar with the British Library’s cataloguing system – cadensa. It is definitely not the most user-friendly interface and the software company that developed it seems to no longer support cadense, which is slightly worrying. The National Trust audio collection at the British Library is their biggest collection with over 1000 entries but access to these recordings is limited due to the cadensa software. From the contact I have had with the British Library they are aware of their limitations and understand they might not be able to offer the best access to archived recordings. They are after all also working with limited resources.

What I believe I am able to concluded from my experience doing oral history recordings on a National Trust site, is that the foundations are there but they just need updating. By bringing together oral historians, IT support, the data protection office, archivists, and copyright experts one could easily update the guidance to make the process safer and more ethical.

Oral History’s Design

A creative collaboration. Maintaining and reusing oral history recordings – The National Trust’s Seaton Delaval Hall case study

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