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Category Archives: Oral History

Women’s Voices from the Scottish Borders

November 16, 2015 by User deactivated | 0 comments

Remembering domestic servants, shorthand typists, cinema pianists and suffragettes: new soundbites from the Ian Landles Oral History Archive

We’re releasing some more soundbites from the Ian Landles Oral History Archive this week. This time we’re showcasing the stories of women from the Scottish Borders.

You’ll hear from Mrs Oliver (b.1901) about her experiences as a pianist working in cinemas in Hawick – ‘The Piv’ and ‘The Wee Thee’ – providing the soundtrack for silent movies. Mrs Oliver also worked as a shorthand typist and she talks about this in a second soundbite. We learn how she perfected her shorthand by sitting in the back of church during services and noting down the sermons.

Other women talk about their memories of the suffrage movement in the years leading up to the First World War. Mrs Stewart (b.1881) remembers suffragettes coming to Hawick and Mrs Thomson tells us how the activists gained a reputation amongst the locals: ‘they come to burn hooses doon’.

A number of women in the Borders worked in service in the early 20th century at the many country houses and estates across the region. Catherine McLeish (b.1902) and Meg Wilson (b.1893) share their experiences.

Follow us on Twitter and watch our Twitterfeed from tomorrow to catch these soundbites.

The Ian Landles Archive is a series of interviews and sound recordings collected by local historian Ian Landles between the 1960s and 2010. The collection, originally started in order to preserve the memories of local men who had fought in World War One, also contains testimonies from local women and material on The Hawick Common Riding, poetry, music, the railways, farming life and mill life. The original full interviews are held on audio cassette tape by Scottish Borders Council Archive Services at the Heritage Hub in Hawick. To listen to all interviews from the Ian Landles Archive currently held on Scran click here.

Images © Aberdeen City Council, Hulton Getty, Dalmellington & District Conservation Trust | Licensor Scran

First World War Voices from Falkirk

October 23, 2015 by User deactivated | 0 comments

As commemorations of the centenary of World War One continue, you may be interested in a recent addition to Scran’s oral history collections – Falkirk’s First World War.

This series of three interviews recorded by Falkirk Museums in 1984, presents the memories of local men and women who lived through the conflict. Listen to a soldier recount his experiences of fighting on The Western Front and women who worked in Falkirk’s munition factories recall the dangers of their work as well as the well-earned visits from concert parties.

Click on the links below to access each interview on Scran, where you’ll also find summaries with timecodes and full transcripts.  Or go straight to the full set of interviews here.

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I remember my father saying to me, he says, ‘George,’ he says, ‘It’ll be all over long before you’re ready to go.’ Little did he know.

Listen to more from this interview with Mr George Gladstone

 

06450181 (1)We all used to sing and sometimes they’d bring people in or a concert party in on a Friday at lunchtime and you got a longer lunch but they was sometimes terrible and we used to clap them and, you know when, and it was only because we didn’t like the thing at all [laughs]. But we used to clap them like anything.

Listen to more from this interview with Mrs Kathleen Templeton

06450299 (1)Tell me about the time now that you saw the Zeppelin.

I was just coming home one night and everybody started to shout, it was dark. You know, they keep the furnaces and everything dark. And you saw this thing just going across the sky it’s like a double decker bus all lit up, you know, it sticks out in my mind, you can mind that, it’s plain. And there was one that was brought down in flames later.

Listen to more from this interview with Mrs Jean Paul

Images: © Falkirk Museums. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk

On Show at the Colony of Artists

September 14, 2015 by User deactivated | 0 comments

Archive images from Scran were exhibited this weekend as part of the 10th annual Colony of Artists event at Abbeyhill in Edinburgh

Colony of Artists takes place every September when residents of Abbeyhill Colonies, a series of streets in the east of the city, open their doors to the public to show a varied collection of artworks that they have produced. More than 30 artists in 20 venues open their homes, to show painting, drawing, photography, mixed media and much more. In recent years this mix has grown to include music, storytelling, baking and street performance.

coloneyofartistsScran’s images were first used in last year’s event when Neil Gregory of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), joined forces with Abbeyhill resident Hilary Burwell to produce a pop-up exhibition about the history of buildings in the area. This showcased some of the area’s now defunct industries, churches and former school buildings. Many of the photographs in this exhibition came from the archives of RCAHMS and were taken as part of the organisation’s remit to survey and record Scotland’s built environment, particularly sites under threat from demolition or radical alteration. Scran was able to offer a social historical perspective to the show, as Neil Gregory pointed out: ‘The images on Scran, especially pictures from the Scotsman archive, were perfect for adding social context to the pictures of local buildings that we were showing, and it triggered so many memories for residents.’

abbeyhillThis year saw Hilary scale-up the exhibition, moving venue from her own home in the Colonies to the nearby Artisan Bar. Moving images, oral histories and portraits of local residents also formed part of the show and residents were encouraged to contribute their own archive material to the event.

A favourite Scran image on show featured a lorry crashing into the Artisan pub building on London Road. ‘This really got the stories going,’ commented Neil Gregory, ‘A lot of people remembered this event from 1969 and the near catastrophe that could have happened if the driver hadn’t had his wits about him as his vehicle careered down Montrose Terrace!’

Images © N Gregory, The Scotsman Publications Ltd. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk

#clickhear Celebrating the Borders Railway

September 8, 2015 by User deactivated | 0 comments

Scran is marking two important events this month with a new audio Twitter campaign #clickhear.

Working with our partners, Scottish Borders Council Archive Service, we are currently uploading highlights from a newly hosted oral history collection – The Ian Landles Archive – onto our website. And to celebrate this and the historic reopening of the Borders Railway we are Tweeting out free soundbites with a railway flavour this month, offering a taster of some of the fascinating testimonies from Borders folk now available as Scran records.

Memories of working as drivers and firemen on the old Waverley Route, the sadness of seeing old engines go off for scrap, remembering the steam from the trains dirtying washing drying on the line.  These are just a few titbits from our soundbites which began on 6th September and will be Tweeted daily until 15th September.

Armistice Memories

September 1, 2015 by User deactivated | 0 comments

‘London was fair heaving, perfectly heaving’

We’ve got a new interview from the Ian Landles Archive (© Scottish Borders Council Archive Service) uploaded and live on Scran with a full summary. And it’s an exciting one! Former railwayman, George Cairns, born in the Scottish Borders in 1899 and interviewed by Ian Landles in 1981, shares his memories of working as a porter and then a signalman on the Borders Railways. He also relates his vivid memories of the eleventh of November 1918.

soldier World War One

Before joining the railways, Mr Cairns signed up for the army. This was in the last year of the First World War and Mr Cairns was sent to train in Surrey. He never saw active service because he was struck down with ‘flu during the epidemic of 1918. As he recuperated in hospital in Lewisham in London, the Armistice was signed. To celebrate, Mr Cairns was allowed to leave hospital with his pal and travel up into London. He witnessed the crowds, got plenty of attention in his military uniform and made his way through the ‘heaving’ throng of The Strand and right up to the gates of Buckingham Palace where he read the historic proclamation declaring the Armistice which had been pinned there. He also saw King George V and Princess Mary as they paraded through the streets in their carriage.

It’s a fascinating story and well worth a listen. You can access the full interview with George Cairns here and find out more about the Ian Landles  Archive on Scran here.

And railway fans, watch out for our upcoming @scranlife Twitter campaign for The Ian Landles Archive launched to coincide with the reopening of the Borders Railway on 6th September. It’s coming soon #IanLandlesArchive #clickhear.

Image © National Library of Scotland, Cheering Soldiers, Western Front, 11 November 1918. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk

The Ian Landles Archive

August 26, 2015 by User deactivated | 1 Comment

A fascinating insight into the lives of Scottish Borders folk in the last century comes to Scran.

rcahms1a_10010720

This series of interviews and sound recordings collected by local historian, retired teacher and author, Ian Landles, between the 1960s and 2010 was originally started in order to preserve the memories of local men who had fought in World War One and is a great complement to existing material on Scran about the conflict. However, the archive also offers a rich seam of oral testimonies from local women as well as men and covers themes including the Hawick Common Riding, poetry and music, farming life and mill life and the original Border railways. Many of the interviewees speak in the local dialect of Border Scots known as ‘Teri Talk’ which gives the recordings great linguistic significance.

The collection of 150 tapes was donated to the Scottish Borders Council Archives at the Heritage Hub in Hawick by Ian Landles in 2014. Digitisation of the interviews was carried out by Tobar an Dualchais with financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The Ian Landles Collection is also being made available through Scran in the form of segmented interviews with full summaries. Some transcripts are also available. Interviewees who talk about their life in the Scottish Borders include:

There will be regular new uploads to the site from the collection so do keep your eye out. We’ll keep you posted from our end.

Image © Scottish Motor Museum Trust, Alvis 1920s. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk

Falkirk’s First World War

August 24, 2015 by User deactivated | 0 comments

World War One memories of Falkirk people now available on Scran.

tape recorder

This three-part collection from Falkirk Archives has been digitised from original cassette tape recordings compiled for Falkirk Museum’s First World War exhibition held back in 1984.

Interviewees talk about life on the Home Front in Falkirk and away on the Western Front during the conflict. Women recall their roles working in local munitions factories and the attitudes of male workers in the factories to women at this time. There are recollections of the Suffragette Movement and when women gained the vote after the war. Men recall their experiences in the trenches during the conflict and remember the impact of The Armistice on those fighting at the Front. An interview with a female munitions worker in Falkirk during World War Two offers an interesting comparison.

Each Falkirk’s First World War interview comes with a summary with timecodes and a complete transcript.

Image © H L Foster

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