Life NATIONAL Review and Accounts 2015/2016 National Life Stories Chair’s When many people think about history, they think about series of innovative interviewing programmes funded almost books and documents, castles or stately homes. In fact history entirely from sponsorship, charitable and individual donations Foreword is all around us, in our own families and communities, in the and voluntary effort. living memories and experiences of older people. Everyone has a story to tell about their life which is unique to them. Each collection comprises recorded in-depth interviews of Whilst some people have been involved in momentous a high standard, plus content summaries and transcripts to historical events, regardless of age or importance we all assist users. Access is provided via the Sound and Moving have interesting life stories to share. Unfortunately, because Image Catalogue at http://sami.bl.uk and a growing number memories die when people do, if we don’t record what of interviews are made available for remote web use through people tell us, that history can be lost forever. British Library Sounds at http://sounds.bl.uk. Each individual life story interview is several hours long, covering family National Life Stories was established in 1987 and its mission background, childhood, education, work, leisure and later life. is: ‘To record the first-hand experiences of as wide a cross section of society as possible, to preserve the recordings, to Alongside the British Library’s other oral history holdings, make them publicly available and encourage their use’. As an which stretch back to the beginning of the twentieth century, independent charitable trust within the Oral History Section NLS’s recordings form a unique and invaluable record of of the British Library, NLS’s key focus and expertise has been people’s lives in Britain today oral history fieldwork. For nearly thirty years it has initiated a FOUNDER ASSISTANT ARCHIVIST FREELANCE ORAL TRUSTEES (at 26 May 2016) Professor Paul Thompson Emily Hewitt HISTORY INTERVIEWERS Dame Jenny Abramsky Bill Knight Dr Zibiah Alfred Loakthar Bob Boas This has been my first year as Chair in succession to Sir questions, featuring a range of contributors, users CHAIR ADMINISTRATIVE (An Oral History of Talking Roger Gavin Nicholas Goodison, whom I would like to thank warmly and family members who have benefitted from the life Dame Jenny Abramsky ASSISTANT Therapists in the UK) Lord Hennessy of for his remarkable leadership of National Life Stories over story approach. Eleanor Lowe Louise Brodie Nympsfield twelve successful years. We also thank him for his generous DIRECTOR (Pioneers in Charity and Bill Knight OBE personal support for our various projects, in particular for Our challenge ahead is to make progress on our new Dr Robert Perks BOOKKEEPER Social Welfare) Lesley Knox the digitisation of Crafts Lives, and most recently for a collecting areas: Legal Lives, for which we commissioned Pauline Morrison Geraint Franklin Dr Robert Perks scoping study and evaluation of our City Lives interviews, a scoping study but for which we still seek significant funding; DEPUTY DIRECTOR (Architects’ Lives) Richard Ranft recorded over twenty years ago, in readiness for a new and Talking Therapists, in partnership with Birkbeck College. Mary Stewart PROJECT INTERVIEWERS Kirstie Gregory Dr Jo Reilly project on the financial capital. We mark his time as The trustees have also agreed a strategy to take the charity (to December 2015) Frances Cornford (Artists’ Lives) Prof Dorothy Sheridan MBE Chairman through our NLS Goodison Fellowships, named forward for the next five years and we will be exploring Dr Cai Parry-Jones (Crafts Lives) Katharine Haydon Prof Paul Thompson in his honour. Later in this year’s Review you can read about new project themes including small businesses, design and (maternity cover as Oral Niamh Dillon (British Library Staff Oral Jennifer Wingate the impressive outcomes from our inaugural Fellows which tourism, alongside a renewed City Lives and the continuation History Curator from (Architects’ Lives) History Project) include a BBC Radio 4 programme devoted to our food of some longstanding projects with funding in-hand. Key February 2016) Dr Thomas Lean Andrew Lambirth NLS ADVISORS (at May 2016) sector interviews. amongst these is Artists’ Lives which celebrates this year (An Oral History of British (Artists’ Lives) Sir Peter Bazalgette with a major exhibition at Tate Britain featuring hundreds ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Science and An Oral History Victoria Lane Eric de Bellaigue Online access to our collections remains an important priority of audio clips from the collection of nearly 370 interviews, Jennifer Wingate of the Electricity Supply (Artists’ Lives) Lord Bragg for us and I am delighted that our ‘Voices of Science’ website one of the largest archives of its kind anywhere in the world. Industry in the UK) Shirley Read Professor Mary Chamberlain won not one but two awards this year: the judges remarking We’re proud to be working in partnership with Tate, with the TREASURER Dr Paul Merchant (Oral History of British Sir John Craven that it is ‘well-crafted and slick…innovative and engaging.’ Courtauld Institute and the Henry Moore Institute, and with Bob Boas (An Oral History of British Photography) Sir Roger Gibbs I’d like to congratulate the Oral History of British Science the generous support of the Rootstein Hopkins Foundation. A Science) Ann Sproat Dr Mark Girouard team, both past and present. Recent news of significant linked conference will explore artists’ life stories. PROJECT DIRECTOR Sarah O’Reilly (Artists’ Lives) Sir Nicholas Goodison earmarked funding from Heritage Lottery Fund for the British Cathy Courtney (Authors’ Lives) Robert Wilkinson Professor Leslie Hannah Library’s ‘Save Our Sounds’ initiative will ensure that all the Finally let me thank our donors, trustees and advisors for (Artists’ Lives, Architects’ Dr Elizabeth Wright (An Oral History of Oral Dame Penelope Lively remaining NLS analogue recordings are digitised for online another successful year, and our staff for their hard work. Lives, Legacy of the English (Crafts Lives) History in the UK) Lord Rees of Ludlow OM access over the next five years, alongside many other oral Stage Company) Dr Hester Westley Jonathan Taylor CBE history collections both from the BL’s archive and from ten COLLABORATIVE (Artists’ Lives) Caroline Waldegrave OBE regional centres around the UK. We expect the initiative to SENIOR ACADEMIC DOCTORAL STUDENTS Dr Jon Wood Bill Williams be transformative of the UK’s audio heritage and of people’s ADVISOR Emme Ledgerwood (Artists’ Lives) awareness of the richness of sound heritage. Dr Sally Horrocks (An Oral Dvora Liberman Dame Jenny Abramsky History of British Science VIDEO CAMERAMAN NLS’s raison d’être, which marks us out as leaders in the oral Chair of Trustees and An Oral History of the TRANSCRIBERS Matt Casswell history world, is the in-depth biographical life story interview, Electricity Supply Industry Susan Hutton often recorded over many hours and days. In our financially in the UK) Susan Nicholls straitened times we are sometimes asked why our interviews Business Friend are so long and who uses such long recordings, so we devote the main section of this year’s Review to answering those 1 Review of 2015 Rob Perks Director of National Life Stories and Religion at the University of Cambridge; Lewis Wolpert, a cell biologist/embryologist who has taken part in several public debates with Christians and creationists representing and defending arguments made in his books, especially Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (2006), in which all religions are understood as deriving from a natural, human- Photo: Courtesy of Frank Davenport CEGB National Control Room, Park Street, London, c1980. evolutionary way of apprehending reality that is inferior to the unnatural approach of science; and Mary Midgley, a A grant from the Wellcome Trust has allowed us to record moral philosopher whose longstanding arguments against individuals with a long association with the Trust and forms of reductionism in philosophy and science (especially interviews are underway with the current Government Chief the assumption that only physically measureable phenomena Scientific Adviser and former Director of the Wellcome Photo: Joe Mason/Darren Crossley ‘Voices of Science’ wins the Royal Historical Society’s Public History Prize for Web and are ‘real’) were focused on science-religion through Trust, Sir Mark Walport; Sir Michael Rutter, former Deputy Digital: (left to right): Stephanie Baxter, Web Coordinator; Sally Horrocks, Senior Academic Advisor; Rob Perks, Director of National Life Stories and Lead Curator of Oral History, British opposition to sociobiology and Richard Dawkins’ The Chairman of the Wellcome Trust and first professor of Library; Tom Lean, Oral History of British Science Interviewer. Matt Casswell Selfish Gene (1976). Other interviewees are John Hedley- child psychiatry in the United Kingdom, after whom the Interviewee Arthur Fowkes, former CEGB Systems Operation Engineer and first Director Brooke, an historian of science whose influential book Michael Rutter Centre for Children and Adolescents at of Operations for the privatised National Grid, was filmed at the National Grid Control Collections and projects Centre, Wokingham, in 2015. Science and Religion (1991) argued against the tendency Maudsley Hospital, London is named; and with Sir William for historical work on relations between science