Archives in Action - Let's Talk, History!
The Let’s Talk, History series has turned up the volume on one of our lesser-known collections: oral histories.
Through interviews recorded largely in the early 1980s, we have been able to weave together stories of life in Cheshire through the voices of people whose memories stretch back to the 1910s.
The idea was born during the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2021 as a way of sharing the newly digitised oral history recordings of the Chester Archaeological Society. These recordings had been digitised through the British Library's Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project, ensuring that voices captured on vulnerable cassette tapes would be accessible for future generations. The first project, Living Memory: A Talking Tour of Chester, invited listeners to explore the city through the memories of local residents, hearing personal stories about everything from the excavation of the Roman amphitheatre and wartime allotments in Grosvenor Park to Chester's regattas and favourite 1920s ice cream flavours.
Originally hosted on the Echoes app, following a recommendation from the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project team, a tour included audio clips that played automatically on encountering the location. While innovative, the requirement to download an app proved a barrier for some users. We therefore adapted the format, making the content available through our blog and SoundCloud channel, alongside printed walking-tour maps that could be picked up from outside the Record Office, making the experience more accessible to a wider audience.
The success of this first talking tour inspired a second in 2022, More Than a Shop: A Talking Tour of Chester, which explored the city's retail history through memories of shopping streets, department stores and market traders. Focusing particularly on Browns of Chester and other familiar names such as Bollands, Phillipson & Golder, Minshull & Meeson and Woolworths, the tour revealed how shopping helped shape the character of the city and the lives of those who lived and worked there.
From these beginnings, Let’s Talk, History grew into a much broader series. Since 2021, it has taken us through the historic streets of Chester, into iconic department stores, onto sports fields, along transport routes and even to the Christmas dinner table. Each themed collection offers a different perspective on how everyday life, work, leisure and landscapes across Cheshire have changed throughout the twentieth century.
The content of the oral histories gave us prompts to explore our historic image collection and the North West Film Archive to illustrate the stories being shared. The resulting audio-visual stories are available on our YouTube and SoundCloud channels and have been enjoyed by more than 1,000 listeners to date.
Creating these tours has given us the opportunity to explore our oral history collections in greater depth. The recordings have since been woven into our Gems work and are helping to bring the stories of Cheshire's past to life in the interpretation at our new Archive Centres.
We’re always looking for new ways to explore Cheshire’s stories through the voices of the people who lived them. What theme would you like to see featured in a future Let’s Talk, History tour? Whether it’s schools, holidays, industry, pubs, fashion or something completely different, we’d love to hear your suggestions!
By Becky Farmer, Archivist and Hannah Grange-Sales, Community Engagement Officer
