Life NATIONALstories Review and Accounts IN PARTNERSHIP 2008/2009 WITH National Life Stories When many people think about history, they think about books For more than two decades it has initiated a series of innovative and documents, castles or stately homes. In fact history is all interviewing programmes funded almost entirely from sponsorship, around us, in our own families and communities, in the living charitable and individual donations and voluntary effort. memories and experiences of older people. Everyone has a story to tell about their life which is unique to them. Whilst some Each collection comprises recorded in­depth interviews of a people have been involved in momentous historical events, high standard, plus content summaries and transcripts to assist regardless of age or importance we all have interesting life users. Access is provided via the Sound Archive’s catalogue at 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 cross­section of present­day Alongside the British Library Sound Archive’s other oral history society as possible’. As an independent charitable trust within holdings, which stretch back to the beginning of the twentieth the Oral History Section of the British Library Sound Archive, century, NLS’s recordings form a unique and invaluable record NLS’s key focus and expertise has been oral history fieldwork. of people’s lives in Britain today. PRESIDENT PROJECT INTERVIEWERS Penelope Curtis TRUSTEES Lord Asa Briggs Harriet Devine (Artists’ Lives) Bob Boas (Legacy of the English Rachel Cutler Sir John Craven PAST CHAIRMAN Stage Company) (Oral History of Sir Nicholas Goodison Martyn Goff CBE Niamh Dillon British Athletics) Steve Howard (Tesco: An Oral History, Stephen Feeke Penelope Lively OBE FOUNDER Architects’ Lives, Chefs) (Artists’ Lives) Dr Robert Perks Professor Paul Thompson Alison Gilmour Barbara Gibson Dorothy Sheridan MBE (Oral History of (HIV/Aids Testimonies) Sir Harry Solomon CHAIRMAN the Water Industry) Mel Gooding Professor Paul Thompson Sir Nicholas Goodison Katharine Haydon (Artists’ Lives) Caroline Waldegrave OBE (Oral History of Barings) Alistair O’Neill David Webster DIRECTOR Hawksmoor Hughes (Oral History and Jennifer Wingate Dr Robert Perks (Crafts Lives) British Fashion) Sarah O’Reilly Lydia O’Ryan NLS ADVISORS ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR (Authors’ Lives) (Oral History of Theatre Sir Terence Beckett Jennifer Wingate Hester Westley Design, Artists’ Lives) Eric de Bellaigue (Artists’ Lives) Monica Petzal Lord Bragg TREASURER Elizabeth Wright (Artists’ Lives) Dr David Butler Bob Boas (Oral History of Shirley Read Professor Mary Chamberlain Theatre Design) (Oral History of Sir Roger Gibbs PROJECT OFFICER British Photography) Dr Mark Girouard Cathy Courtney TRANSCRIBERS Wendy Rickard Martyn Goff CBE Susan Hutton (HIV/Aids Testimonies) Dundas Hamilton CBE ADMINISTRATOR Susan Nicholls Melanie Roberts Professor Leslie Hannah Mary Stewart (Artists’ Lives) Dame Jennifer Jenkins FREELANCE ORAL Jenny Simmons Sharon Johnson CATALOGUER HISTORY INTERVIEWERS (Artists’ Lives) Austin Mitchell MP Dr Alex King Martin Barnes Jon Wood Professor John Saville (Oral History (Artists’ Lives) Jonathan Taylor CBE ARCHIVE ASSISTANTS of British Photography) Victoria Worsley Bill Williams Elspeth Millar Louise Brodie (Artists’ Lives) Lord Young of Graffham Susannah Cole (Pioneers in Charity and Social Welfare, Oral History VOLUNTEERS of the British Press, Down to Claire Fons Earth: An Oral History of Sarah Griffiths British Horticulture) Audrie Mundy Chairman’s Foreword In one of our City interviews in 1995 Nick Durlacher, then Cambridge, Yorkshire, Northumbria and Scottish Water. As Chairman of the London International Futures Exchange, with previous National Life Stories projects focusing on industry remarked that traders were involved in business that could – food, steel, oil and gas, and the Post Office – this will be a exceed “their true net worth and capital resources. That’s top­to­bottom project with an emphasis on long­serving staff. great when everything’s running for you and brings lots of success… But when things turn stormy, people see that the Although we attract support from the business community we Emperor has no clothes.” remain committed to collecting life stories from the broadest range of British society. All National Life Stories projects are I am sure that he would say the same today, but in stronger scoped to gather recordings from both managers and workers, terms. In the midst of the current financial and economic crisis from the well­known and the unknown, from the vocal and it is worth restating the important role that oral history can the rarely heard, from a balance of gender and background. play in documenting historical change through personal And where we are not the most appropriate body for carrying experience. Oral history helps us to see not only past events out this work, or where funding is difficult to come by, the as they happened, but also the present through the prism of British Library’s oral history section (of which we are part) the past. The internal world of London’s thriving financial works with external partners or commissions interviews from centre that we captured between 1987 and 1996 in our its own slim resources. Much recent oral history work in the interviews through one of our first projects, City Lives, may areas of health and disability, for example, has been achieved have largely disappeared but the origins of more recent events through this model of working. can be gleaned from the archived recordings. Events such as ‘Big Bang’ in 1986, the Lloyd’s of London debacle, and the Like many charities National Life Stories faces difficult financial collapse of Barings Bank in 1995, which seemed so significant challenges and continues to rely on the generosity of grant­ at the time, can now be assessed in a new context. What making trusts, corporate and individual donors for all its work. better time, then, for our new partnership project with The The British Library has provided invaluable support, which in Baring Archive to gather thirty interviews about the rise the current climate is more important than ever. and fall of a merchant bank within living memory? On behalf of the Trustees my thanks go to each one of our Another sector that has undergone significant change over staff and volunteers for another year of achievement, and to recent years, particularly since privatisation in 1989, has been our donors who have made it possible. the water industry and we are pleased to have received sufficient funding for a short series of recordings with long­ serving staff in the industry. It is an area that has hitherto been almost entirely ignored by historians. We are grateful to the handful of water companies that shared our belief that a Sir Nicholas Goodison collection of interviews might redress that gap: Wessex, Chairman of Trustees 1 Review of 2008 Rob Perks, Director, National Life Stories Collections and projects Despite the vital role that water plays in all our lives, it is a Authors’ Lives has been amongst our most active projects: sector almost entirely undocumented by historians. Very few over twenty interviews have been completed and later in key players involved in the enormous post­war changes in this Review project interviewer Sarah O’Reilly reflects on ownership and technological advances have been interviewed, developments so far. The longest and most in­depth let alone the lesser­known engineers, maintenance men, recordings have been with Booker Prize­winning novelist tunnellers and water quality staff. Over the past year we have Penelope Lively (30 hours), novelist and playwright Michael been able to raise sufficient funding to carry out a short series Frayn and biographer Michael Holroyd (27 hours each). of recordings with people working in the UK water industry. In agreement with the Arts Council of England, which part­ An Oral History of the Water Industry will focus initially on funded the project, we were keen to ensure that poets were five water companies, representative of urban and rural supply not neglected and recordings have now been completed with (Yorkshire and Wessex), differing scales of activity (Cambridge James Berry, R V Bailey, Alan Brownjohn, U A Fanthorpe, and Northumbria), and non­privatised businesses (Scottish Anthony Thwaite and Allen Fisher. Support from the Booker Water). The project will gather life story recordings reflecting Prize Foundation has usefully enabled us to interview some the period up to the 1973 Water Bill (which reformed over younger novelists, notably 2008 shortlisted authors Linda 1,500 water and waste organisations into ten water authorities); Grant (The Clothes on Their Backs) and Philip Hensher the impact of privatisation (in England and Wales) in 1989; and (The Northern Clemency). the more recent regulatory changes around water quality and the environment. Our interviews with Chefs have continued, thanks to the generosity of Sir John Craven. Niamh Dillon has gathered The Legacy of the English Stage Company (supported by the recordings with Michel Roux (to join an earlier interview