Regional Adviser North West

Stephen Kelly

My interest in oral history began as a student at Ruskin College when I conducted a number of interviews for Raphael Samuel. After further studies at the London School of Economics I became a journalist and later a television producer with Granada TV; occupations that always involved interviewing people. After ten years at Granada I became a freelance writer and broadcaster and subsequently published three oral histories about football. These were followed by oral histories of Coronation Street, life in the 1950s and memories of British soldiers in the Korean War. I also founded the Centre for Oral History Research at the University of Huddersfield and was awarded a £120,000 grant for an oral history of rugby league. I also received an HLF grant for a study of Asian immigrants in Huddersfield during the 1960s and worked on an oral history of the Two Minute’s Silence. In more recent years I have been compiling an oral history of Granada Television (www.granadaland.org). Over the past 20 years I have trained volunteers on numerous oral history projects in the north west where I am the OHS regional adviser. I am currently Visiting Professor in Oral History at Manchester Metropolitan University and Visiting Professor in Journalism at the University of Chester.

Regional Adviser Northern Ireland

Michael Burns

I’m an oral historian based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with a background in public history. I studied History (BA) and Public History (MA) at Queen’s University Belfast. Since then, I’ve worked in the heritage sector with a real focus on collecting and sharing people’s stories. For the past eight years, I’ve been with the Northern Ireland War Memorial, where I’m now the Research Officer. My work has focused on managing and expanding their Second World War Oral History Collection, a role I have grown into through various positions, including volunteer, paid transcriber, project coordinator, and researcher. This experience has given me a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of oral history, including interviewing, transcription, cataloguing and collection management. I’ve also explored ways to make these stories accessible to the public, particularly through digital platforms and social media. Additionally, I have advised a number of individuals and community organisations on how to approach developing their own oral history project from design to recording interviews. Ensuring that ethical best practices are balanced with real-world constraints, such as funding limitations and capacity.

I’m also the Vice-Chair of the Federation for Ulster Local Studies, which supports over 70 local history and community groups across Ulster in producing and sharing local research. I’m especially interested in oral histories in post-conflict societies, and in exploring both civilian and military experiences of war, whether at home or abroad. I’m always keen to support new oral history work across Northern Ireland and help others bring important stories to light.

Regional Adviser Yorkshire, Trainer

Sam Smith

I am an Oral History Society accredited trainer on the Introduction to oral history, Life story interviewing near the end of life and audio editing courses. I am also the OHS Regional Network Coordinator and an Adviser for South Yorkshire. I recently completed a PhD “Understanding oral history in palliative and supportive care” in the Health Sciences School at the University of Sheffield and I’m a sound artist interested in merging oral history with field recordings and music. I have been an oral historian for 20 years, starting my career as a coordinator on an oral history in palliative care service at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. I have also managed and consulted on several heritage oral history projects throughout the UK and worked for clients including England Heritage and Health Education England. I am particularly interested in oral history as a form of digital legacy, and the ethics of its public reuse in the digital realm. If you’re looking for oral history advice or training in or around South Yorkshire, please get in touch.

Trustee & Regional Adviser, North East

Adam Bell

I love oral history, and I have the pleasure and privilege of being paid to do it as an important part of my job! I’m a social history museum curator with almost 20 years’ experience of working with communities and individuals to tell their stories through museum exhibitions, and preserving their heritage in museum permanent collections.

I have lots of experience of working on oral history projects in the North East, on subjects including shipbuilding and ship repair, coal mining, travelling funfairs, football, COVID-19, women’s working lives, and others besides.

I recorded my first oral history at about the age of 11, on a C90 cassette tape. The interviewee was my grandfather Gary, and the topic was his experiences as a child in WW2. I still cherish those first recordings to this day.

I studied history at uni, specialising in social and cultural history. My master’s dissertation was on the extent and use of oral history in Northern Ireland’s registered museums.

Regional Adviser, North West

David Govier

I work as a sound archivist at Manchester Central Library. I started working at the library in 2007 but did not get involved in sound archives until the North West Sound Archive closed in 2015, when we received the Greater Manchester holdings. Since then I have worked with many new projects, helping project managers to scope out, fundraise for and archive oral history collections. From 2019-2022 I managed the North West hub of the British Library’s ‘Unlocking Our Sound Heritage’ project, which enabled us to digitise and transform access to dozens of legacy oral history collections held on analogue tape all over the North West. Since then I have trained as a digitisation engineer and been kept busy with the Royal Northern College of Music’s Throwing Open the Concert Doors and Central Library’s Piccadilly Radio Archive project, both supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. In between digitising tapes, I spend my time advising projects on how to grow our collections and researchers on how to access them. I am interested in how we provide access to and re-use sounds once they are collected.

Regional Adviser, North West

Laura Balderstone

I am a regional advisor for the North West region with a background in academia and public history research projects. 

My oral history career began with my PhD in 2006, interviewing members of various local clubs and societies in the East Midlands whilst exploring notions of community. 

My first academic job as a research associate in 2010 also focused on oral history; interviewing members of Liverpool’s maritime community for the AHRC funded ‘Mapping Memory’ project which uncovered memories of Liverpool’s dockland between the 1950s and 70s. 

More recently, I acted as Co-Investigator and oral history lead on ‘Melting Metropolis’, a multi-million-pound, Wellcome Trust funded project that explores the history of urban heat in London, New York and Paris. 

In the intervening years, my job as a lecturer in Modern British History allowed me to develop my interest in teaching oral history. In this role I helped introduce students to oral history at various points in their degree programme, whilst also acting as supervisor for undergraduates and postgraduates in any oral history related research. During this period, I also gained extensive experience in developing ethics applications for oral history-based research projects.  

If you’re looking for oral history advice in the North West region, please do get in touch.

Regional Adviser London

Pam Schweitzer

I have spent the last forty years developing reminiscence arts work, especially original reminiscence theatre productions, both professional and amateur. I founded the Age Exchange Theatre Trust and the Reminiscence Centre and was its Artistic Director from 1983 to 2005. I directed the European Reminiscence Network (1993 to the present) specialising in international reminiscence festivals and conferences and co-ordinating Europe-wide projects on reminiscence in dementia care. I am now based at the University of Greenwich, where I am developing the Reminiscence Theatre Archive and Website to preserve the interviews conducted over the years. I work with students on Reminiscence Theatre and Theatre-in-Education projects, often linking old and young in creative exploration of memories. I was awarded the MBE in the UK Honours List in 2000 for my services to reminiscence work. I was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Dementia Care Awards in 2014 and an Honorary Doctorate from University of Greenwich in 2017.

Regional Adviser, Yorkshire

Kate Valentine

I am a director and oral history practitioner who is passionate about enabling people to tell their stories. I have worked as a theatre director, BBC Radio Producer and educator and have recently completed an MA by Creative Practice at the University of York, exploring digital story telling in community drama.

I am the founder and Co-Director of Digital Drama, (digitaldrama.org) and we work with theatres, arts organisations, museums and community groups to connect people through creative projects. Our specialism is using oral history as either the basis for inspiration for writing scripts, verbatim drama or making short films with archive footage and edited oral history extracts.  We also train volunteers in oral history recording and reminiscence facilitation, as well as digital skills such as editing and transcription. Outputs are shared live at community events and online via audio tour apps, video and audio platforms and project websites.

Regional Adviser London

Martin Bisiker

I specialise in the recording of filmed oral histories. I set up the charity  Legasee Educational Trust in 2011 and I now have an archive of over 650 personal testimonies of military veterans.  If you are considering the use of video for your oral history project, I will be happy to advise.

Regional Adviser, South West

Lisa Kerley

I have been working as a consultant in the field of community engagement within the museum and heritage sector for 25 years. I have a Masters Degree in Museum Studies and my career started with the learning team at the Mary Rose Trust in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

I now live on the Isle of Wight and successfully manage a range of large and small community heritage projects for local museums and community organisations. I am very passionate about making local heritage relevant for under-served audiences and creating increased access and opportunities for people to learn about, be involved with and share their heritage. 

Since 2012 my work has focused predominately on reminiscence and oral history.  In 2018 I was awarded a Developing your Creative Practice grant from Arts Council England, which enabled me to undertake a range of professional development opportunities, related to this field. I have since applied to Arts Council England for funding as an individual and been successful with two applications for projects I have designed which have combined reminiscence and an oral history practice, one of which was specifically designed for people living with dementia. 

In addition to managing my own projects I support museums and heritage organisations to undertake community oral history work. I advise them on funding, archiving and curating material, project management and provide training for staff and volunteers. 

I particularly enjoy intergenerational oral history projects and bringing together older people and younger people to share memories in creative ways. I am also very interested in the effect and impact that reminiscence and life story work can have on individual wellbeing. Above all I love interviewing because it has provided me with an opportunity to meet hundreds of interesting people and given me the privilege of hearing about the stories of their lives. 

Regional Adviser Eastern England

Juliana Dempsey

I am an OHS Regional Adviser for the East of England region and provide advice, support and training to individuals and groups undertaking their own oral history projects, as well as working as a freelance oral historian and heritage project manager. I am also a trustee of the Oral History Society. I always love hearing people’s stories and never get tired of the surprises they tell you about their lives.

For almost twenty years I have collaborated with artists, creative practitioners, community projects and volunteers to record and document stories about the past, people and places in order to communicate stories, share information and involve audiences. 

I have edited audio clips for exhibitions, trained volunteers in oral history interviewing, recorded hundreds of interviews, worked with national and local museums, created films with community groups and been successful in obtaining funding for my own community projects.  

Recent projects include:

• The Over 50s Black Men Forum, Sòrò Sókѐ oral history project
• Gurkha Stories
• V&A Museum of Childhood
• WWII Veterans, Biba stories and sub cultures for Southend Museum
• Cambridge University Press  
• Colchester Castle Museum
• Legasee Veterans Archive
• Norfolk County Council (Time and Tide Museum)
• Essex County Council (Seaside heritage)
• BBC Radio Suffolk

Please get in touch via email: [email protected]  

Regional Adviser East Midlands

Colin Hyde

I manage the East Midlands Oral History Archive (EMOHA) at the University of Leicester. My involvement with oral history goes back to the Leicester Oral History Archive, which I joined in 1988. Since then, I have worked with many community-based oral history projects. I have been with the EMOHA since 2001 and from 2018-2021 I managed the Midlands hub of the British Library’s ‘Unlocking Our Sound Heritage’ project, which was based at the University of Leicester. This was followed by EMOHA’s ‘Sounds for the Future’ project, which was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. I have many years’ experience of giving advice, help and training in oral history. I have helped to create oral history related exhibitions, newsletters, books, videos and web exhibitions. Among many interests, I particularly like recording stories of urban environments, and creative uses of sound.

Regional Adviser South West

John Burgess

On reflection my involvement with oral history possibly began, albeit unwittingly, when I was given a reel to reel tape recorder for my fourteenth birthday and I recorded my grandmother recalling her childhood memories in her beautiful soft Somerset voice.

This early fascination with sound recording eventually led to me joining the BBC and a career in radio, where I worked on ‘both sides of the microphone’ as an interviewer and producer.

When I retired from the BBC and reluctant to ‘hang up the microphone’ I immersed myself in oral history, mainly with individuals who wished to record their life stories. Eventually I discovered the Oral History Society and my knowledge and interest in oral history broadened immensely. It was the perfect replacement for my radio days. 

Several years ago I became a regional adviser for the society in the south west and now adviser where I  provide help advice and training for heritage projects, history groups, schools, and various organisations who wish to embark on a oral history project.

I particularly like one to one recording of individual life stories.

Whatever your interest in oral history and wherever you are in the south west if you need help or advice please do get in touch.

Chair, Regional Adviser London

John Gabriel

I became Chair of the Oral History Society in 2017 and I am a member of the Society’s Higher Education and Migration Special Interest Groups. I am also currently a member of the organising group for our 2022 Annual Conference on the theme of ‘Home’. I have participated in community based oral history projects since the early 2000s including those on refugees, young people in care, work experiences in declining industries of the Thames Gateway and lost trades in the London borough of Islington. I have recently collaborated with Jenny Harding and Verusca Calabria on a three day course for PhD students at universities in the south of England. I work part-time as a senior professor of Sociology at London Met. University where I teach health ethics and research methods. My research interests include racism, learning and teaching in higher education and oral history, of course!

Regional Adviser London

Sam Guthrie

I’m an oral historian based in North London, if you’re interested in oral history projects (especially community based projects) and their ins-and-outs from start to finish, please do get in touch for a chat. I got a start in the field while pursuing my MA in Public History at Queen’s University, Belfast as lead cataloguer for National Museums Northern Ireland on the British Library’s “Unlocking Our Sound Heritage” Project. Subsequently, I led oral history projects across Ulster as a freelance project manager including “Our Stories – Our Times” with the British Red Cross,  “Stories on the Estate” with Ionad na Fuiseoige, the St Patrick’s Church Oral History Project, and “Echoes of the Field” a project produced for East Belfast GAA. Since 2025 I have been working on oral history projects in freelance and employed capacities in Australia and London through my role as the Manager of Islington Museum & Archives. I’m particularly interested in the development of oral history in Northern Ireland, social remembering and forgetting, and the use of oral testimony in the developing practice of vernacular history. I maintain a strong connection to the Oral History Network of Ireland and am a member of Oral History NSW.

Regional Adviser West Midlands

Margaret Tohill

I am a Regional Network adviser for the West Midlands. 

My involvement in oral history work started in 1995 when I was asked to project  manage a 5-year oral history project to record the reminiscences of the World War II generation living in Worcestershire.  This work led to organising and running other oral history projects for the then Worcestershire Record Office and giving talks and presentations on oral history work locally and nationally.  Since then I have also run oral history training courses for a variety of local groups and societies in Worcestershire and continue to give advice and guidance to groups and individuals who are thinking of setting up a project with some kind of oral history element.   

More recently I have been involved in sorting and cataloguing a wide variety of oral history collections and training volunteers to transcribe and summarise oral history interviews. 

In my current tole as a senior archivist with Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service I have a particular responsibility for dealing with archive collections, including our sound archive and oral history material.

Vice Chair, Web Officer, Regional Adviser Wales

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. 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.

Trustee, Regional Adviser East Midlands

Cynthia Brown

I am a Trustee of the Oral History Society, one of its Accredited Trainers, and a Regional Adviser for Leicestershire and Rutland. I started my oral history career in the 1990s in a community history unit at Leicester City Council, and in 2001 I helped to establish the HLF-funded East Midlands Oral History Archive (EMOHA) at the University of Leicester, where I was Project Manager for three years. I have a particular interest in using oral history to research and interpret family history, and along with my colleague Mary Stewart I contributed an article on the subject, ‘Exploring encounters between families, their histories and archived oral histories’, to the Archives and Records journal in April 2017. Other articles include ‘Moving on: reflections on oral history and migrant communities in Britain’ in Oral History, Volume 34, No. 1. I have also written or edited a range of books using oral histories. I am now semi-retired but am still involved in historical research and writing alongside my involvement in the Oral History Society.

Regional Adviser West Midlands, Trainer

Julia Letts

My current work revolves around training, interviewing, audio editing and creating podcasts, and managing oral history projects for the heritage, community and education sectors. This takes me all over the West Midlands and beyond where I advise and work with museums, galleries, schools, councils, community groups, arts organisations and wildlife charities. My career started as a BBC Radio Producer and branched into oral history after working as a producer on ‘The Century Speaks’ in 1999. I am an OHS accredited trainer and a key adviser on working with schools and young people. I co-produced the school resources on the OHS website and am a member of the Creative Special Interest Group. Do have a look at my website or give me a call.

Regional Adviser Scotland

Yvonne McFadden

I am a Research and Teaching Associate at the University of Strathclyde. Currently, I am Co-Director of the Scottish Oral History Centre. My research interest focus on the social and cultural history of twentieth century housing and gender in post-war Scotland. My work examines the impact of gender, consumerism and class on social relations and wellbeing. I am currently working on a monograph of my thesis research under contract with Edinburgh University Press. I am experienced in oral history, material cultures, visual sources and heritage sector. Since finishing my PhD thesis at the University of Glasgow in 2016, I have worked on heritage projects with Scottish Women’s Aid, National Autistic Society and Glasgow Women’s Library. In 2017, I published a short story as part of collection, Voices from the Belvidere, based on my research into a female surgeon at the Belvidere Fever Hospital, Glasgow in 1918. I have also taught at University of Glasgow and Glasgow Caledonian University on Scottish History and Health History.

I am currently working as a Reserach Associate with Prof Arthur McIvor on a oral history project collecting stories from the Lost Villages of East Ayrshire.

I am currently the Convenor of Women’s History Scotland and manage their social media. I am also a member of the Scottish Oral History Centre here at Strathclyde.

Regional Adviser, N. Yorkshire & Scotland

Mhairi-Jean Ross

I am a researcher in Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow. I currently work on the Changing Realities participatory research project, which documents the lives of low-income families in the UK. My PhD examined the life-course experiences of older lone mothers in Easterhouse, Glasgow, and the significance of female networks of solidarity for getting by challenges of gender, place, poverty, and lone motherhood. I am a working-class academic with roots in several deprived Scottish neighbourhoods. My research interests include the intersections of class and gender, as well as the practice of transformational pedagogy. My twenty-year experience as a community education worker within deprived Scottish neighbourhoods informs my academic and lived experience of shifting realities of working-class lives. I have extensive experience in conducting oral history research in community settings. My projects to date have included developing techniques for mapping working-class lives, documenting the experiences of people leaving long-term psychiatric care, charting the process of the Carbeth Hutter’s community land buyout, and exploring lone motherhood in Easterhouse, Glasgow, since the 1980s. 

Trustee, Regional Adviser South East

Padmini Broomfield

An OHS trustee since 2009, I am also an Advisor for the South East region. As Liaison Trustee I support the Environment and Climate Change Special Interest Group (ECC-SIG). My oral history journey began in the late 1990s at Southampton Oral History Unit with recording the life stories of Asian women, shipyard workers and local communities. Now a freelance consultant, I work with heritage, educational and community organisations on participatory projects that explore the lesser-known stories of people, places and working lives. I also provide training, mentoring and external evaluations for heritage projects. Recent oral history work has involved recording and editing interviews on migration, manufacturing, maritime and regeneration themes to create content for museum displays, audio posts, online exhibitions and publications. I am particularly interested in collaborations where my interviews are interpreted and presented in creative ways to engage and captivate people.

Regional Adviser South East

Nicola Benge

I am a cultural and heritage project manager, consultant, trainer and oral historian with a focus on creative heritage, community engagement and trauma-informed practice. I support clients across the arts, heritage and health sectors to plan and deliver participatory projects involving oral history, reminiscence and archive material. 

I am also a qualified social worker, enhancing my work with a grounding in mental health, safeguarding and inclusive, person-centred approaches.  With 20 years of experience, I collaborate with organisations including the NHS, universities and national heritage bodies to develop engaging projects, exhibitions and training which incorporate oral history and reminiscence.

Regional Adviser South West

Marilyn Tucker

I am co-founder of Devon based folk music organisation Wren Music, and I was introduced to oral history through folk song collecting. I have used oral history as the basis for song writing, and as actuality in sound recordings and community plays. I specialise in supporting community heritage projects.

Secretary, Regional Adviser South East

Rob Perks

I first discovered oral history when I was studying for a doctorate in political history, since when I helped establish the Bradford Heritage Recording Project in the early 1980s, working as a museum curator, before a period in television. From 1988 until my recent retirement, I was Lead Curator of Oral History at the British Library, and Director of National Life Stories since 1996, heading a team of interviewers, archivists and transcribers involved in oral history collecting and fieldwork in a variety of sectors: from arts and crafts to business and finance, from the utilities to science, from architecture to publishing. I’ve been Secretary of the Oral History Society and an editor of Oral History Journal since the later 1980s. I’ve acted as an advisor to a range of oral history organisations around the world, including the National Lottery Heritage Fund (HLF) and BBC Radio in the UK, and projects in Canada, Greece, India, Australia, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, China and Ireland. In 2007 I was awarded an honorary DLitt by the University of Huddersfield. My publications include The Oral History Reader (Routledge, third edition 2015, with Al Thomson). My last major project before retiring was ‘Unlocking Our Sound Heritage’, an ambitious five-year £18.8m project to digitally preserve 100,000 of the nation’s most rare and vulnerable sound recordings, both at the British Library and around the UK, working with a consortium partnership network of ten regional audio preservation centres.

Regional Adviser North West

Rosalyn Livshin

I am an Oral History Society accredited trainer on the introduction and tailored training courses. I am also a regional network adviser for the Greater Manchester area.

I started my oral history career in the 1970s working for the Manchester Studies Unit of Manchester Polytechnic. There I was responsible for building up the archive of oral testimonies taken from the older members of the Manchester Jewish community, who were the children of immigrants and I also began to interview refugees and survivors of the Holocaust. This collection was deposited with the Manchester Jewish Museum when it opened in 1984.

I continued to interview refugees and survivors of the Holocaust for many projects, including the Manchester 45 Aid Society, the British Library’s Living Memory of the Jewish Community and video interviewer for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation. I was the North-West co-ordinator and video interviewer for the Association of Jewish Refugees ‘Refugee Voices’ project, the interviewer for a project at Manchester University for a book on the refugee experience in Manchester and oral history trainer and interviewer for the Windermere ‘From Auschwitz to Ambleside’ project. My PhD (2015) on Nonconformity in the Manchester Jewish Community; the case of political radicalism, 1889-1939, drew upon my early interviews and new ones. In 2020-21, I produced the audio and text for the Memory Map of the Manchester Jewish Community, which is available online. I currently work as a freelance Oral Historian, recording lifestories.

Regional Adviser Yorkshire, Trainer

Michelle Winslow

I am a Trustee, Trainer and Regional Adviser with the Oral History Society and an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Sheffield’s School of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Midwifery. For the OHS I deliver introductory, advanced and project management training, plus a course on oral history at the end of life.  I have supported and led oral history projects in various contexts for over twenty-five years, within my end of life specialism these have offered opportunities to create life history recordings as personal and family records and for research. 

Regional Adviser Scotland

Alison Chand

I’m a regional adviser for Scotland for the OHS and a BL/OHS accredited oral history trainer. In addition, I deliver training for the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde, where I am a research associate and teach on various undergraduate and postgraduate history modules, including the ‘Oral History Theory and Practice’ and ‘Work and Community Placement in Oral History’ modules. I am also a part-time lecturer with the Centre for History at the University of the Highlands and Islands and undertake freelance work as an oral historian, proofreader and copy-editor. I actively undertake oral history research, and am currently working on a BA/Leverhulme-funded project entitled ‘Rainbows in the Windows: An Oral History of Young Families in Britain in the COVID-19 Pandemic’. Please do get in touch if you are in Scotland and would like any advice on oral history.

Regional Adviser Wales

Emily Hewitt

I am a Regional Adviser for Wales and currently work as Archivist at West Glamorgan Archive Service in Swansea.  

Between 2016 and 2025 I was Assistant Archivist at the Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University, and supported undergraduate and postgraduate students using oral history as part of their research. I was closely involved with the Voices of Swansea University, 1920-2020 oral history project, with Dr Sam Blaxland.

My oral history career began at the British Library, where I worked from 2012 to 2016 as Assistant Archivist with the Oral History department and National Life Stories. 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 professional interests focus on the archival management of oral history and exploring ways in which oral history can be made more accessible. If you are in Wales and would like advice about oral history, I’d be happy to help.

Regional Adviser, West Midlands

Siobhán Stevenson

I am a Birmingham based Regional Advisor working with organisations in the cultural heritage sector, charities, community groups, artists, students, and volunteers. My work includes advising on project logistics, project management, interviewing and recording techniques, audio editing and re-purposing content as podcasts and for physical exhibition and digital distribution. I am currently exploring how VR/AR can be used to make oral histories more accessible.

I have worked on a wide range of oral history projects interviewing a variety of people from silversmiths in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter to teenagers across the decades for the Museum of Youth Culture. I have also trained project volunteers to interview and summarise testimonies of survivors of the Bangladesh Liberation War and and capture and re-purpose stories of Asian migration from East Africa to the UK. Working with the Downs Syndrome Association, I recorded the life stories of people in their 50s with downs syndrome, which were archived and displayed in the Museum of Learning Disability. I am currently working with Birmingham Museum’s Trust, to make the City’s Sound Archive accessible to communities and for re-use in creative projects. 

I continue to believe oral history provides the opportunity for people whose voices are often left out to be heard and preserved for future generations. I love to connect with people working in this area, so drop me a line and let’s have a chat.

Regional Adviser, South East/South West

Anna Cole

I am an Oral History Society Regional Advisor for South East and South West and provide advice, support and training to individuals and groups undertaking oral history and archival projects. I trained in archival and oral history during my PhD (2001) in Sydney, Australia, and have worked both in academia and third sector/voluntary sector. I have recorded oral histories on many topics including Indigenous Australian history, women’s community activism, forced migration, refugee and un-accompanied child asylum seekers, rape crisis movement and the Violence against Women and Girls sector (VAWG). My experience includes partnership work with charities, local statutory authorities, schools, museums, archives, support groups, grassroots activist community organisations, and academic institutions. I have co-produced podcast episodes, a playscript and reports for community groups and funders and creative workshops designed to map oral history with students excluded from school, and care-experienced young adults among others.

I am committed to inter-sectional and anti-oppressive practice and apply a social justice lens to trauma-responsive ways of working. I am particularly interested in advising projects about sustainable relational care and about the ‘dual purpose’ of oral history projects, ie, how to record oral history and to be aware of the impact on those interviewed and doing the interviewing, as well as others involved in the projects. I have a certification in trauma-responsive work with parents, and skills and experience working with young people in schools and other educational settings. I am a member of the OHS Special Interest Groups on Migration and Creative Practice.  Based on my experience in oral history in the VAWG sector I wrote the History Safe Toolkit which you can read about on the Wellbeing section of the OHS website: https://www.tavinstitute.org/projects/a-history-safe-toolkit

Regional Adviser London

Sarah Gudgin

I am an OHS Regional Adviser for the London region and provide advice, support and training to individuals and groups undertaking their own oral history projects, as well as working as a freelance oral historian and heritage professional.  I am experienced in working with partners in a wide variety of settings, including museums, community heritage projects, arts organisations, charities and diverse communities. 

I am interested in creative and innovative approaches to collecting and interpreting oral history. I have collaborated with artists, creative practitioners and participatory community projects to explore stories about the past, people and place in order to communicate ideas, share information and involve audiences. I am a committee member of the OHS Creative Oral History special interest group (SIG).

As a freelancer, I have used my expertise to work in a range of settings to interview on a wide range of topics, to curate exhibitions, develop gallery inter-actives and A/Vs, as well as edit content for online exhibitions, using oral history materials to engage and educate.  I was previously Curator of Oral History at the Museum of London (2000-2013) where I was responsible for the care, management and development of a large oral history collection and archive used in exhibitions and galleries. I am also an accredited reminiscence practitioner and have delivered creative memory and reminiscence projects with museums and communities.

Recent activities include recording LGBTQ+ oral histories for Islington’s Pride; video oral history interviews with second and third generation Holocaust survivors for the IWM and a community heritage oral history project for the South London Gallery.Please get in touch via email: [email protected]