• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Recommendations? Lives of c19th & c20th Birmingham oral history

F

FauxFaux

proper brummie kid
Wondering if anyone has any recommendations for oral histories from this period - ideally I would like to hear people from Small Heath and Bordesley (especially those who lived in the back to backs) talking about their lives. It seems to be weirdly difficult to track these oral histories down but maybe it's just me!

Any source recommendations very gratefully received.
 
Morturn said:
I recall Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery did some local history oral history recording a couple of years ago. With the museum currently closed I am not sure who you would contact but the Friends of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery may be worth a go.

Alternatively you could try the Oral History Society
Click to expand...
This site would also be worth a visit for Small Heath/Bordesley Green pictures and memories of the 20th century

Home | Small Heath Circle

Visit our forum at: smallheath.proboards.com
smallheath.proboards.com smallheath.proboards.com
 
FauxFaux said:
Thank you, I think these are modern though rather than voices of the c19th and c20th.
Click to expand...
https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/directory_record/98083/helen_lloyd
http://www.oralhistoryconsultancy.co.uk/profile.html
Helen Lloyd of the Oral History Society 'The speaker plays and talks about extracts from her audio recordings for the National Trust Back to Backs and from her CD “Memories of Back to Backs”'
She would certainly be able to advise you.

I do not think you will find any sound recordings before 1900 of working people. From the 20C there are sound tracks to films made of the Back-to-Backs, but as far as I know there are not tape recordings or records. Even the films feature a middle class narrator with a condescending attitude.

It also depends what you propose to do with the recordings. This is why oral historians like to record the voices of now older people who can tell you about life in the Back-to-Backs when they were children. The recordings you hear in the Back-to-Backs were made in this way.
I hope this is helpful.
 
Stokkie said:
https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/directory_record/98083/helen_lloyd
http://www.oralhistoryconsultancy.co.uk/profile.html
Helen Lloyd of the Oral History Society 'The speaker plays and talks about extracts from her audio recordings for the National Trust Back to Backs and from her CD “Memories of Back to Backs”'
She would certainly be able to advise you.

I do not think you will find any sound recordings before 1900 of working people. From the 20C there are sound tracks to films made of the Back-to-Backs, but as far as I know there are not tape recordings or records. Even the films feature a middle class narrator with a condescending attitude.

It also depends what you propose to do with the recordings. This is why oral historians like to record the voices of now older people who can tell you about life in the Back-to-Backs when they were children. The recordings you hear in the Back-to-Backs were made in this way.
I hope this is helpful.
Click to expand...
Sorry, to be clear I know there won't be c19th recordings - obviously - however, there were people in the C20th who grew up in the late C19th who could recount about their childhood experiences. Thank you RE: the films, and yes such a shame about the condescending narrator!

Not proposing to do anything with the recordings, just want some immersive first-hand stories about the places our ancestors lived.
 
As you are not proposing to sample, publish or re-record existing material then things are easier. Why not buy Helen Lloyd's 'Memories of Back to Backs' from her. I don't think there's any easy way otherwise of listening to it.

You could start a reminiscence group in the area you are interested in. (If the original community is still together which most aren't) You could post in the back-to-backs thread here and see if anyone is willing to talk to you? https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/for...acks-and-memories-of-our-back-to-backs.51455/

But sadly there are few recordings of working-class people talking in their own voices about their lives in earlier periods. If anyone has any ideas then do post!

Tape recorders or recording machines were expensive before the 1960s. I've heard Edison cylinders of Alfred, Lord Tennyson reading 'Charge of the Light Brigade', but they didn't record his cook or his gardener.

I think university students might start such a project with advice on the ethical hurdles. Or a community group? Publishing such material brings its own issues.

Good luck!
 
Last edited:
Most social historians use written records, diaries, letters, memoirs - sometimes fiction too. You could try Mass Observation which was active from the 1930s - but I don't know if they were active in the Birmingham Back-to-Backs. massobs.org.uk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top