Oral history transcription: volunteer blog

Charlotte McDonnell is an oral history transcription volunteer with Wakefield Museums and Castles. She has been volunteering with us for one year and has transcribed 26 oral history interviews so far. 

In this guest blog she shares her experiences, including clips from some of her favourite interviews.

My role as an oral history transcription volunteer

As Wakefield Museums and Castles work on the development of a new museum and library for Wakefield, they are collecting a diverse range of oral history interviews. These interviews help to document and preserve Wakefield’s local history through the voices of the people who lived it.

My role in this project is to transcribe the oral history interviews. Transcriptions help museum staff to catalogue, search for and use oral history interviews. They also ensure that any audio that is shared through displays or digital content is accessible.

Listening carefully, I transcribe the audio of each interview exactly as it’s been spoken including keeping any grammatical mistakes and local dialect used. Usually, I’m able to get around four minutes transcribed per day.

After I finish the initial transcription I go over the whole interview again to correct any mistakes. It’s important to do this as there can be times where you think you got it right only to re-listen and realise you made an error!

From this role I’ve been able to learn so much about the people, projects and local organisations in Wakefield. 

Here are a few of my favourites:

A very important cooker

Helen Teagle talks about her mother’s 1953 Cannon Gas Cooker in her interview, which was carried out after she donated the cooker to the museum collections. 

To me the most interesting part of this interview is how much life story can come from one object. For example, Helen talks about how her parents bought the cooker at a showroom in Wakefield shortly after they got married and how they moved it to each new house that they bought.

The stories Helen tells about the many recipes her mother made using the cooker also give great insight into domestic life in the 1950s and onwards, which is an often underexplored area of history. 

In this clip, Helen talks about learning how to cook from watching her mother.

Download a transcript of Helen's interview clip here (opens in new window)

BaBi steps

I really enjoyed transcribing the interviews recorded as part of the BaBi Wakefield project. BaBi Wakefield is a research project that aims to reduce health inequalities in babies born in Wakefield through collecting maternity and child data. 

The project is run by Dawn Wright and through her interview we can see the incredible amount of work that goes into running BaBi Wakefield. 

Dawn Wright

Here Dawn speaks about her role in the project and why it is important:

Download a transcript of Dawn's first clip here (opens in new window)

One part of Dawn’s interview that really caught my eye was when she spoke about one of the positive changes a sister project, Born in Bradford, made to child asthma rates by changing the old bus routes. 

It really highlighted to me the important impact these projects are able to create.

Download a transcript of Dawn's second clip here (opens in new window) 

You can find out more about the BaBi Wakefield project in our online exhibition 

Getting wordy about Wakefield

Finally, the interviews of Philip Dawson Hammond, and Micheal Yates and Roger Manns from the Black Horse Poets provide a fascinating look into Wakefield’s literary organisations.

Members of the Black Horse Poets and Wakefield Word Group with their new patron, Councillor Jack Hemingway, in January 2024.

Philip in his interview spoke about the many stories he has from his time working for the Wakefield Express. 

My favourite one was about a new press that had been built to produce the newspapers that had been designed by Rockwell International - who designed a space toilet!

Download a transcript of Philip's clip here (opens in new window) 

Micheal Yates and Roger Manns in their joint interview spoke about the strong community dynamic that their poetry group fosters. 

I really enjoyed listening to the ways people come together to share their passion for poetry and help others grow by providing thoughtful feedback.

Download a transcript of Michael and Roger's clip here (opens in new window) 

You can find out more about the Black Horse Poets in their guest blog. 

Get involved!

If you would like to volunteer as an Oral History Transcription Volunteer, please get in touch by emailing muscasvolunteering@wakefield.gov.uk 

We'd love to hear from you!