This week’s selection comes from Dr Amy Evans, a recent volunteer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. Whether this phrase amuses or maddens you, it is interesting to consider its provenance. I’m in in the former category, and find this a delicious curiosity of non-standard spoken English! The expression was submitted…

Oral History Curator Mary Stewart reflects on the contributions of volunteers to the oral history collections, particularly remembering the sterling work of Audrie Mundy.

By Jonathan Summers, Curator of Classical Music It was exciting to receive an Edison concert cylinder as a donation recently, but much more so to discover that it is probably the first recording by members of the Queen’s Hall Orchestra. Cylinder box labels and the cylinders housed within often do…

This week’s selection comes from Dr Eva del Rey, Curator of Drama and Literature Recordings and Digital Performance. British-Caribbean poet, artist and theatre maker Malika Booker reads ‘Island Grief after Hurricane Ivan’ from her 2013 collection Pepper Seed. Recorded at the British Library in May 2013 for the Between Two…

Paul Merchant explores oral histories with people who value religion in spite of their own unbelief.