We all have a story to tell.
Picture Ipswich digital archivist and historian Melanie Rush can help you tell yours.
“Oral histories are part of the ancient tradition of storytelling, a way to pass on knowledge, memory and experience from one generation to the next,” Miss Rush said.
Picture Ipswich has a growing collecting of oral histories that capture life experiences, stories of people, places, and events, and aspects of daily life, once familiar, but now distance memories.
“Originally our oral histories were a combination of audio recordings and typed transcripts,” Miss Rush said.
“We now film interviews and edit into short segments, overlaid with images from the Picture Ipswich collection, to bring the stories to life.”
Picture Ipswich is running an online workshop as part of Ipswich Libraries’ Chasing Our Past At Home series.
The Recording Your Memories: a beginner’s guide to oral history workshop will show residents how to record their memories, friends and family, at home.
To get the creative juices flowing, check out this video from a recent Picture Ipswich oral history series Night Soil: The Logistics of Collecting Night Soil
This oral history is with Ipswich City Council Waste Services employees Peter Bird and Jeff Franklin, who speak about the logistics of collecting night soil.
Prior to the installation of sewage pipes, residents relied on outhouses, also known as the thunderbox, when nature called, and even more so on Ipswich City Council collectors who came to collect the waste, known as night soil.
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Ipswich Libraries is running a workshop Recording Your Memories: a beginner’s guide to oral history which will show how to record your memories using a mobile phone.
The workshop will be conducted online via Zoom on Tuesday, 9 June at 6pm.
You can register here.
Once registered an email with a ‘Join Zoom Meeting’ link will be sent prior to the event.
Registrations close Tuesday 9 June at 9am.
