... I worked for a man who was a weaver. He was a very good weaver and these people, these good weavers took the young people in and taught them to weave. I think they got paid for it but I'm not sure, and they undertook to have young people, they used to call them tenters, and they undertook to have these young people and to teach them weaving, and we did ... they did teach us. And first of all ... first morning I went in and they put all the looms on and they nearly drove me mad. "Clackety, clackety, clack" and it was awful. But he showed me what to do and he's ... I couldn't hear him though. He had to come and shout in me ear and gradually we learnt to lip read and make signs like a lot of weavers do, and he showed me first of all how to set the looms on. Having learnt that I had to learn how to stop... 

MISCEL/1206/18

Weavers' Lip-Reading

The Greater Manchester Sound Archive is available at Manchester Central Library. The collection includes hundreds of oral histories, radio and music recordings.

You can check the catalogue at http://gmlives.org.uk. If you can't find what you're looking for in the catalogue please email us on archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk.

Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) is an ambitious partnership project led by the British Library and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to address the threat facing the UK’s sound heritage. Sounds held on physical formats risk being lost as the carriers degrade over time and the equipment to play them is no longer produced. The project aims to transform access to and preserve the nation’s sound heritage, to create sustainable centres of excellence in digital audio preservation and to involve new audiences in engaging with their audio heritage in innovative ways.

Archives+ at Manchester Central Library is the hub partner for the North West region, which covers Cumbria, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The hub will digitise around 15,000 recordings on 5,000 cassette and open reels held all over the region. The British Library will archive the digital files and provide access to a proportion of them online. The project will recruit volunteers across the region who will spend time learning how to sort, catalogue and promote the region's sound heritage.

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