A web exhibition, Leicester in WW2, was created for the 80th anniversary of the end of WW2. Written by EMOHA with help from student volunteers, this uses a wide range of oral histories, photos, videos and original text to illustrate local memories of many aspects of the war.
Dr Helen Foster has recently completed an artist residency, funded by the British Library, that took inspiration from Nottingham Library’s oral history collections to create new prose and poetry, as well as public events and sound walks through areas of Nottingham. More information is on EMOHA’s blog.
In September, EMOHA’s 2025 Festival of Oral History took Oral History and Family History as a theme. Speakers covered oral history in coal mining communities, oral history in palliative care, the life story interview, an oral history of inter-racial relationships in Leicester, followed by a workshop on using oral history for family history, and a look at audio archives more broadly.
Training and support have been given to a variety of groups including projects looking at the 40th anniversary of Diwali celebrations in Leicester; ‘Tell Tall Tales’ a heritage project which focuses on the research and retelling of local folklore and community stories in Leicester and Leicestershire; St Philip’s Church’s ‘Living Together Well’ project, which has recorded more than 100 people from different faiths/nationalities/ethnicities talking about living in Leicester; Weelsby Hall in Grimsby, where a grant from the Heritage Fund has enabled them to restore and repair elements of the building and deliver outreach activities, including oral history; ‘Live Cancer Free’, which used oral history recordings to create a short documentary about living with cancer.
Collections have been received from the Northampton Saints Rugby Union Club’s ‘Black, Green and Golden Age’ project; the Boddington Memories project, which looks at the past 25 years of the village; Metro-Boulet-Dodo’s ‘Steel Town Tales’ project, which recorded memories of the steel industry in Corby.
Cynthia Brown continues to be a part of the UK South Asian Digital Archive Project, which will be including oral histories in its collection in due course.
