Meet Our Networkers in Wales
Vice Chair, Regional Adviser
Beth Thomas
At present I’m the Vice Chair of the OHS but I’ve been a Trustee since the 1980s. I’m also a Regional Adviser for Wales and an accredited oral history trainer. I’m now retired, but before that I worked for many years at the open-air museum at St Fagans, Cardiff. I worked there as a dialect researcher, sound archivist and oral historian, eventually becoming Keeper of History and Archaeology for the National Museum of Wales as a whole. Before retiring, I was very proud to have led the content team for the redevelopment of St Fagans as a participatory national museum of history – a project that resulted in the museum being awarded the Arts Fund Museum of the Year in 2019. Since retirement, I have been responsible for redeveloping and managing the OHS’s website. If you are in Wales and would like advice about an oral history project, please get in touch.
Rwy’n siarad Cymraeg ac wedi gweithio gyda chymunedau ar hyd a lled Cymru. Os ydych yn gwneud prosiect hanes llafar trwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg, mae pob croeso ichi gysylltu am gyngor neu hyfforddiant.
Regional Adviser
Emily Hewitt
I am a Regional Adviser for Wales, and Secretary of the Oral History Society’s Higher Education Special Interest Group. I currently work as an Assistant Archivist at the Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University. I have been closely involved with the Voices of Swansea University, 1920-2020 oral history project, with Dr Sam Blaxland (Department of History, Swansea University). This project includes over eighty interviews with past students and staff, and was created as part of Sam Blaxland’s publication Campus and Community in a Post-War World, 1945-2020 (University Wales Press, 2020) to mark the university’s centenary. I support undergraduate and postgraduate students using oral history as part of their research, and supervise student work placements and volunteers in oral history summarising and transcription. My oral history career began around 2010 when I volunteered on an oral history transcription project at the V&A Museum of Childhood. I graduated as an archivist the following year and worked as Assistant Archivist for the Oral History department and National Life Stories at the British Library until 2016, when I moved to Swansea University. In 2017 I was Project Manager on the Gower Landscape Partnership oral history project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to preserve the history and heritage of Gower through oral history. My main interests are the archival management of oral history and exploring ways in which oral history can be made more accessible.
Posts from Wales
In their own words? Challenges of presenting stories of Syrian refugees in Wales
Thoughts on the challenges and responsibility of editing and presenting oral histories translated from their original language.
Reflections from Wales in 2021
At first it seemed to have been a quiet year – but I’ve probably been too immersed in the redevelopment of the Oral History Society’s website! So if your project is not in this report,
“Black history is Welsh history”
How Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales and Welsh Government are working to embed Black History into the story of Wales.
Our Social Networks: friendships and relationships of people with a learning disability
Mencap Cymru’s Our Social Networks project has recently ended. Over three-and-a-half years, one pandemic and 59 oral history interviews we have collected the story of people with a learning disability’s friendships and relationships, as well
Remote interviewing on Setting the Record Straight/Gwir Gofnod o Gyfnod
Just before lockdown, Archif Menywod Cymru/Women’s Archive Wales embarked on Setting the Record Straight/Gwir Gofnod o Gyfnod – an oral history of Wales’ women politicians and their role during 20 years of Wales’ devolved Senedd.
Talking through windows: interviewing Syrian refugees in a pandemic
“If I was in a real prison… say there are fifty prisoners in one room, you would at least make friends with five of them… But here, look at my situation. There is no one around.” Salih, Cardiff, 2020
Oral history in Wales in 2020
Oral history in Wales in 2020 by Beth Thomas and Emily Hewitt 2020 was a difficult year to keep abreast of oral history in Wales. It has also been a challenge for projects that have had