Forest Oral Histories
The Dean Heritage Centre houses a collection of unique oral histories on audio cassette tapes, from local residents in the 1980s which cover recollections of childhood, shopping, war, various local trades and industries.
To help preserve these precious memories this project has been digitising the collection allowing them to be enjoyed for many years to come.
‘Happy is the Eye’
Here is a film produced by local artist Ryan Powell for our Forest Oral Histories project.
This draws on the Dean Heritage Centre’s archive of oral
history recordings in creating a visual and aural depiction of the dreaming
forest. The film uses recordings and
photographs sourced from the Dean Heritage Centre archive, to build up an
image of life in the Forest of Dean during the 20th century, with a focus on
ways that people directly interacted with the natural landscape as part of
their way of life.
The name of this film comes from the saying ‘Happy is the Eye betwixt the Severn and the Wye’.
What has the project delivered?
The 1980s collection held at the Dean Heritage Centre and new Oral History recordings from the Voices from the Forest project are being catalogued and stored at the Centre, creating a broad timescale of oral histories for research and public engagement.
MP3 copies will be available for the purpose of educational research, primarily with the Forest Dialect project. Excerpts of recordings will be placed on audio listening posts in the galleries of the museum, and online.
What can I get involved in?
We need volunteers to help in cataloguing the oral history recordings.
Click here to go to the Dean Heritage Centre website.