What We Do
Recording Peoples' Lives
This is what Colchester Recalled is for: recording the memories of older people so that future generations can learn about life in the 1920-2020 period. It is a very rewarding experience, hearing about schools and work during the Second World War, a world with no TV, central heating or computers, but bombed houses, blackout at night, and all the men at war.
We need more volunteers to do this recording. You learn by doing it. Initially you sit in on a live recording, watching the interviewer and interviewee, sitting side by side in front of a microphone, as they recall their life from childhood to the present. It is not really an ‘interview’ with set questions demanding answers like ‘Did you enjoy school?’ ‘No, not much’. It is a relaxed ‘Tell me about your schooldays’, getting people to describe their life in their own way. Reminiscing.
Archiving
Every recording is given a number (see Our Archive) and as soon as possible it is copied. Because it is digital it can be totally lost. It is the Archivist's job to copy it and store it on the Archive’s hard drive immediately. If you are organised and efficient, we need volunteers to be Archivists. It also appeals to those with good IT skills. You will have access to our main archive at the University of Essex’s Library where the digital archive is accessed, plus hundreds and hundreds of the cassettes (now digitised) on which our recordings were made before the year 2005 (see Our Archive). They must not be lost! You will also be involved in developing our digital index. It is one of the finest and most thorough in Britain, with everything you need to know about each recording - an Excel spreadsheet with over 3,600 lines of entries (see Our Archive).
Liz and Christine (former typists) have keyboarded hundreds of pages of interview transcripts.
Rob designed and maintains our 3,650-line digital index
Transcribing
In our early days we did summaries of every interview (see recording 2331 Emmy Went below) but now we aim for a full transcript, word for word of a recording (see recording 0603 George Herman below). If you have basic keyboarding skills and your own computer we need volunteers to listen to each interview and produce text versions of what they say, usually on a Microsoft Word file. As you listen and keyboard you get to know that person very well. It is the most popular Colchester Recalled volunteer work.
In our early days we did summaries of every interview (see recording 2331 Emmy Went below) but now we aim for a full transcript, word for word of a recording (see recording 0603 George Herman below). If you have basic keyboarding skills and your own computer we need volunteers to listen to each interview and produce text versions of what they say, usually on a Microsoft Word file. As you listen and keyboard you get to know that person very well. It is the most popular Colchester Recalled volunteer work.
The Colchester Recalled archive is one of the unknown treasures of Colchester; hope you can come and be part of it.
If you would like to know more, or give it a try, please contact Andrew Phillips
If you would like to know more, or give it a try, please contact Andrew Phillips
A Summary and a Transcript
Below are links to a typical Summary (Emmy Went) and Transcript (George Hermon) of 2 typical Colchester Recalled recordings of local people’s lives. All our 3,500+ recordings will eventually have keyboarded Summaries or Transcripts like this:
Below are links to a typical Summary (Emmy Went) and Transcript (George Hermon) of 2 typical Colchester Recalled recordings of local people’s lives. All our 3,500+ recordings will eventually have keyboarded Summaries or Transcripts like this:
Recording 2331: Emmy Ethel Went - Born 03 Sept 1899 - Rowhedge
Recording 0603: George Hermon - Born 11 July 1911 - Great Tey
Sound Samples
