Back to yesterday and the recording thing …..
During the week of ‘We Cluster and We stick ” ,I was contacted and subsequently interviewed by the lovely Radio London journalist ,Louise Pepper .The interview went out on the Eddie Nestor Drivetime Show .
Roll on four and a half years ,and out of the blue, and I open an email from Louise asking if i would like to be part of ‘The Listening Project’.
She explained TLP is a collaboration between Radio 4 and The British Library which involves people up and down the country ,coming into the recording studio and sharing an intimate conversation with a friend or relative, to help to build a unique picture of our lives today. Living history perhaps ?
Some of these conversations will be broadcast across BBC radio and all will be archived by the British Library , preserving them for future generations.I see the British Library part of it as a sort of Time Capsule .In years to come people might listen to them to research language used in the two thousand and tens -who knows .
So yesterday we went up to The Radio 2 Studios in the very impressive Broadcasting House , had coffee , went to the loo ( about 8 times ) and then settled down in the studio with Louise . Vanessa Feltz was in the next studio and the whole massive television news team and studios were across the corridor . I was a bit wobbly .The microphones were turned on , the conversation started and then went on and on and on .My friend and I were very relaxed ,we laughed, I cried , we talked ,we got muddled and said stuff we might never have said had we not been there .I really enjoyed it .Louise took notes and asterixed a few bits .She said she could barely breath ,let alone let herself laugh out loud , when we were talking about keeping a diary and I said something like- ” I write every day in my Dairy Diary , ever since my milkman gave me one fifteen years ago ,I’ve never wanted anything different ” !
Louise then gave us a guided tour of the building – including the newsroom- amazing .
I felt like Will Humphries ,the work experience guy in W1A
I read this post alongside your comment about Geoffrey naming the dinghy Utah and not talking about the war.
In NZ, at least, that seems to be common practice by veterans. When a friend of mine did oral history interviews with remaining ww1 veterans a number of years ago it was the first time most of them had ever spoken of their war experiences, even to their wives of many years. I can only assume it’s similar in other countries.
Oral history is such an important part of capturing our society – just imagine if Geoffrey and others who fought with him had been part of a project like The Listening Project.
Louise told us about some of the other people who had been involved in TLP and 2 of them were friends who had met at a young age in a concentration camp.
I love The Listening Project – such fascinating little insights into people’s worlds. Sometimes funny, sometimes just interesting, sometimes really moving. Do let us know if yours is going to be broadcast xx