L A N O I Life T A N stories Review and Accounts 2009/2010 National Life Stories When many people think about history, they think about books interviewing programmes funded almost entirely from and documents, castles or stately homes. In fact history is all sponsorship, charitable and individual donations and around us, in our own families and communities, in the living voluntary effort. memories and experiences of older people. Everyone has a story to tell about their life which is unique to them. Whilst Each collection comprises recorded in-depth interviews of some people have been involved in momentous historical a high standard, plus content summaries and transcripts to events, regardless of age or importance we all have interesting assist users. Access is provided via an online catalogue at life stories to share. Unfortunately, because memories die when www.cadensa.bl.uk and a growing number of interviews are people do, if we don’t record what people tell us, that history being digitised for remote web use. Each individual life story can be lost forever. interview is several hours long, covering family background, childhood, education, work, leisure and later life. National Life Stories was established in 1987 to ‘record first- hand experiences of as wide a cross section of present day Alongside the British Library’s other oral history holdings, society as possible’. As an independent charitable trust within which stretch back to the beginning of the twentieth century, the Oral History Section of the British Library, NLS’s key focus NLS’s recordings form a unique and invaluable record of and expertise has been oral history fieldwork. For more than people’s lives in Britain today. two decades it has initiated a series of innovative PRESIDENT ARCHIVE ASSISTANT FREELANCE ORAL Robert Wilkinson Lord Asa Briggs Elspeth Millar HISTORY INTERVIEWERS (An Oral History (from April 2009) Martin Barnes of Oral History ) PAST CHAIRMAN Susannah Cole (Oral History of Dr Jon Wood Martyn Goff CBE (to April 2009) British Photography ) (Artists’ Lives ) FOUNDER Louise Brodie Victoria Worsley TRANSCRIBERS Prof Paul Thompson (Pioneers in Charity and (Artists’ Lives ) Susan Hutton Social Welfare, Oral History CHAIRMAN Susan Nicholls TRUSTEES of the British Press, Down to Sir Nicholas Goodison Bob Boas VOLUNTEERS Earth: An Oral History of Sir John Craven DIRECTOR Claire Fons British Horticulture ) Roger Gavin Dr Robert Perks Sarah Griffiths Dr Penelope Curtis Sir Nicholas Goodison Sophie Ladkin (Artists’ Lives ) DEPUTY DIRECTOR Penelope Lively OBE Audrie Mundy Rachel Cutler Mary Stewart Dr Robert Perks (Oral History of PROJECT INTERVIEWERS Prof Dorothy Sheridan MBE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR British Athletics ) Dr Harriet Devine Sir Harry Solomon Jennifer Wingate Stephen Feeke (Legacy of the English Prof Paul Thompson (Artists’ Lives ) TREASURER Stage Company ) Caroline Waldegrave OBE Barbara Gibson Bob Boas Niamh Dillon David Webster (HIV/Aids Testimonies ) (Architects’ Lives, Chefs ) Jennifer Wingate PROJECT DIRECTOR Prof Mel Gooding Dr Alison Gilmour Cathy Courtney (Artists’ Lives ) NLS ADVISORS (Oral History of the (Artists’ Lives, Architects’ Alistair O’Neill Sir Terence Beckett Water Industry ) Lives, Chefs, Legacy of the (Oral History of Eric de Bellaigue Dr Katharine Haydon English Stage Company) British Fashion ) Lord Bragg (Oral History of Barings ) Lydia O’Ryan Prof Mary Chamberlain SCIENCE PROJECT Dr Thomas Lean (Oral History of Theatre Sir Roger Gibbs CO-DIRECTOR (Oral History of Design, Artists’ Lives ) Dr Mark Girouard Dr Katrina Dean British Science ) Monica Petzal Martyn Goff CBE (British Library) Dr Paul Merchant (Artists’ Lives ) Dundas Hamilton CBE (Oral History of SENIOR ACADEMIC Shirley Read Prof Leslie Hannah British Science ) CONSULTANT (Oral History of Dame Jennifer Jenkins Sarah O’Reilly Dr Tilly Blyth British Photography ) Sharon Johnson (Authors’ Lives ) (Oral History of Jenny Simmons Austin Mitchell MP Dr Hester Westley British Science ) (Artists’ Lives ) Jonathan Taylor CBE (Artists’ Lives ) Paula Thompson Bill Williams CATALOGUER Dr Elizabeth Wright (Legal Lives ) Lord Young of Graffham Dr Alex King (Oral History of Theatre Design, Crafts Lives ) Chairman’s Foreword y r a r b i L h s i t i r B , r e n r a W r e t e P It was writer and biochemist Isaac Asimov who remarked, On behalf of the Trustees my thanks go to each one of our paraphrasing Isaac Newton, that “There is not a discovery staff and volunteers for another year of achievement, and to in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with our donors who have made it possible. As well as the Arcadia insight, that does not arise out of what went before: ‘If I have Fund I would especially like to thank the Royal Commission for seen further than other men, it is because I have stood on the the Exhibition of 1851, The Baring Archive, The Rootstein shoulders of giants.’” This year we launch the most ambitious Hopkins Foundation, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the programme in our history to document ‘what went before’ – Henry Moore Foundation and the Friends of the British Library. An Oral History of British Science . It has been in gestation for five years and is now underway thanks to the generosity of Arcadia, the charitable foundation of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, who have agreed to support the first two strands of the programme, ‘Made in Britain’ and ‘A Changing Planet’. Over the next three years we will capture British scientific Sir Nicholas Goodison discovery and innovation through up to two hundred life stories, Chairman of Trustees not only with the notable and the famous, but with lesser- known figures too. For the first time we will be complementing audio recordings with video footage, featuring scientists with apparatus or in significant locations. A new project website has already been launched as the first step to establishing a new history of science web ‘hub’ at the British Library, at the heart of which will be the new oral histories. More funding will be needed for this and, even more importantly, for the remaining two programme strands addressing biomedicine and cosmology. With this new departure for NLS, alongside seven other active fieldwork projects and a growing number of partnerships, the moment seemed right to review both the charity’s financial arrangements and its staff structure. We believe the changes we have made will position us better to meet the fiscal challenges that lie ahead, and respond effectively to restructuring within the British Library itself, initiated to respond to shifts in public user expectation. 1 Review of 2009 Rob Perks Director of National Life Stories Collections and projects After five years planning and fundraising we began a major new programme, the first of its kind in the UK, An Oral History of British Science . The Arcadia Fund is generously supporting y r a two of the four thematic strands ( Made in Britain and A r b i L Changing Planet ) over the next three years, and the British h s i t i Library’s Curator of the History of Science, Katrina Dean, is r B , r e co-directing. This is the largest single grant that we have t n u received and it has enabled us to recruit four new team H h t members, including Tilly Blyth, on secondment from the Science e b a z i Museum as Senior Academic Consultant, forging an exciting l E new partnership between NLS, the British Library and the Sarah O’Reilly interviewing Penelope Lively, NLS Trustee and Chair of Authors’ Lives Advisory Committee. Museum. Tom Lean was appointed as interviewer for Made in Britain and Paul Merchant for A Changing Planet . A project Lives , one involving Graham Swift discussing the deposit of advisory committee is in place and the interview programme his own archive at the British Library, and another chaired by is well underway as Tilly details later in this review. A public Penelope Lively in which project interviewer Sarah O’Reilly launch in February 2010 coincided with a new history of reflected on the process of being interviewed with biographers science blog and website, www.bl.uk/historyofscience , which Victoria Glendinning and Michael Holroyd. The session led to will provide online access to the audio and visual interviews, an excellent piece in the Daily Telegraph and Victoria presents with transcripts, as the project develops. The remaining two her own perspective later in this review. Authors’ Lives received science strands, Cosmologies (maths, astronomy and physics) grants in 2009 from the John S Cohen Foundation, the Esmée and The Factory of Life (biomedicine) remain unfunded. Fairbairn Foundation and the Friends of the British Library but we still require further funding. Together the four themed strands will add interviews with 200 scientists to the national collection, using the life story As Artists’ Lives methodology to document not just the key moments and reaches its three famous breakthroughs but the influence of early life; the hundredth evolution of ideas, beliefs and morality; relationships – recording we have how teams function, competition and collaboration amongst added interviews scientists; failures and setbacks; how funding, commercial over the past year pressures and policy-change impact on day-to-day science; with leading cultural differences – the impact on UK science of émigré and printmaker and refugee scientists; the role of lesser-known figures; the day-to- painter Norman y r e day humdrum and grind of science in the laboratory or in the l Ackroyd, and the l a G field; and how science is recalled and narrated: the role of story, painter Stephen e n i t memory and oral tradition, the passing-on of knowledge. n Farthing, Rootstein e p r e Hopkins Chair of S y s Now entering its third year, Authors’ Lives has been gathering e Drawing at the t r u pace with thirty interviews complete or underway at the end o University of the C of 2009.