Unlocking Our Sound Heritage - Family

Bristol Community FM Podcasts

FAMILY is the work of local people, freshly trained in podcasting by BCfm, using old archival audio digitised by UOSH digitised. The podcasters tell special stories inspired by the oral history from two collections held at Bristol Libraries - ‘A Town in the West Country’ and ‘Bristol People’s Oral History Project’. Under the guidance of BCfm’s Pat Hart, local people were recruited and trained to create podcasts. Using the oral histories as their starting point, participants enhanced them with research and commentary, reflecting on what these voices are telling us. Moving, funny and thoughtful by turns, they have been compiled into this one hour audio piece. The ‘A Town in the West Country’ collection was recorded in 1988, capturing memories of Bristolians reminiscing about wartime Bristol. The recordings were part of research for a play of the same name that was performed at the Bristol Old Vic. The ‘Bristol People’s Oral History Project’ collection was recorded by Stephen Humphries in the late 1970s. Steve was researching recollections of childhood and youth in the first three decades of the 1900s. The project interviewed about 200 working class people from Bristol and the West Country who were born between 1890 and 1925. Both collections are now available in digital format thanks to UOSH based at Bristol Archives. Unlocking Our Sound Heritage is a national project led by the British Library and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.