COMMUNITY MAPS FOR A STORY ABOUT MY UNCLE HOW TO
The session covered how to use the recording equipment, guidance on conducting interviews and there was also time to make some practice interviews. He arranged a short training meeting for myself and two other interested volunteers. At that event Ruth, one of the John Gray Centre archivists, asked if I would be interested in helping with fieldwork and later Mark, one of the project researchers, contacted me. I became involved in the Regional Ethnology of Scotland Project after attending a Haddington Remembered session with my uncle. People share their stories and this contributes to the pictures we have of when our relatives were younger. The Ethnology research project is helping us ensure that we can build our knowledge. Tracing family trees can give us names, dates and places but it is the social history that catches my interest. I know they both had bikes and that my grandfather, having driven a Council lorry for many years, found the size of his first car challenging and it was regularly to be found parked quite far from the kerb! It’s often too late when we realise how little we know about our families. My grandfather worked for the local Council and my grandmother for a local baker.
On reflection now, I realise that most of the memories shared with me were from their married years, and the childhood years of my mother and her four brothers. My grandparents, William and Helen Cunningham I also knew that, as the oldest child he took on responsibilities for the well-being of his siblings. My nana used to deliver Sunday papers for her father, regularly cycling miles out into the country from Haddington. However, it wasn’t until more recently that I realised how little I actually knew about their early years. Both were local and came from large families. I was very close to my maternal grandparents and I used to love encouraging them to share stories of when they were younger. To date, Janis has carried out 17 interviews with 18 interviewees and, as the following report demonstrates, she doesn’t seem to be thinking of hanging up her microphone anytime soon! We’re very glad to hear this!įor as long as I can remember I have had an interest in family history. In this month’s blog post we hear from one of our East Lothian volunteer fieldworkers, Janis Macdonald, about her interest in social history, how she came to be involved with the RESP and what she has learned from her participation. As well as valuing the oral history interview for its own sake we are also keen to encourage and facilitate opportunities for people to get together and learn from each other about the community they live in. We are always encouraging people to get involved with our Project, whether as a volunteer fieldworker or transcriber, or as a willing interviewee.
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