I am so pleased an in-depth life story interview I conducted with former magistrate and Crown Court clerk, Irene Elliott, has been included in the British Library’s fantastic new web resource - ‘If Homes Had Ears’. The interview extract highlights Irene’s vivid and detailed description of her childhood in the 1950s in Preston and the many tasks her mother performed in the home.
To listen to the interview extract follow this link: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/irene-elliot-on-her-mothers-hard-work
A written summary of the full interview can be word searched on the Sound and Moving Image Catalogue (www.sami.bl.uk). The full interview audio recording is publicly accessible and available at the British Library. It sits alongside 20 further life story interviews I conducted with former Crown Court Clerks, primarily to glean their first-hand accounts about critical changes to the criminal justice system in England and Wales between the 1970s to 2017. The interview collection was created as a core part of my doctoral research project in collaboration with National Life Stories at the British Library (www.bl.uk/projects/national-life-stories) and the London School of Economics Legal Biography Project (www.lse.ac.uk/law/legal-biography-project).
The new British Library web resource, If Homes Had Ears mined the treasures of the Library’s Sound Archive to explore the sonic landscape of the home. Key to this resource are the voices and memories of people speaking about home life over the last 140 years. If Homes Had Ears is grouped into five areas found in most homes: the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room and the garden. There are three discursive and thought-provoking articles for each space, and the web resource features over 70 fascinating audio clips to intrigue the listener.
To find out more about the creation of the resource, read British Library curator, Mary Stewart's blog: (https://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2020/10/what-if-your-home-had-ears-.html).
You can follow this link and explore the richness of the entire web resource yourself: www.bl.uk/if-homes-had-ears
RSS Feed