Meet Our Networkers in the West Midlands

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 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.

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.