Meet Our Networkers in Yorkshire

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 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.

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. 

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.