Russell Coope interviewed by Paul Merchant, An Oral History of British Science, British Library, catalogue reference C1379/63/02. © British Library Board.

Transcript:

I went down to the – got on the bus and went to Upton Warren and I nearly fell over a mammoth tusk, and there were bones sticking out all over the place; reindeer antlers, woolly rhinoceros teeth and jaws, all lying around in the bottom of the pit. And then one of the quarry men said to me, he says, ‘You know where those bones come from?’ and I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘You see that black seam?’  There was a layer of black in the middle of the gravel, he says, ‘they all fall out of that,’ and he says, ‘it’s full of seashells.’ Well if you know anything about geography you’ll know that Droitwich ain’t very near the sea so this became unlikely. And I got a biscuit tin and I put some of this black mud in to wash the shells out. And amongst the ‘seashells’ – they weren’t, they were freshwater molluscs – were bits of beetle. The beetle bits were clearly contemporary with the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros. I knew not what they were but what sort of things they were. Some of the things I was looking at Upton Warren were familiar but some of them that weren’t. Now there is a group of beetles, dung beetles, this group of beetle are known as aphodius and amongst my bits were lots and lots of them with a bit horn in the middle of its head which split into two at the top. We found that this was in fact living but not in Europe but living in Asia, and it was a – a species now confined to high altitude in Tibet. What living in Britain during the Ice Age? Some of the things were sufficiently peculiar that I went to visit a specialist in the group that I was interested in, the carabidae, the ground beetles, a man called Carl Lindroth at the University of Lund. And I showed him my stuff and he just looked at one thing and he said, ‘Do you know what that is?’ and I said, ‘Well I know the sort of thing but it doesn’t look quite right.’ He says, ‘you’re dead right it doesn’t, it’s an East Siberian species, where did you get it from?’ I said, ‘Worcestershire’ [laughs]. You can imagine we had a rather – a confrontation and the reason was that most people in those days believed that the present day distribution of an animal was somehow an indication of its evolutionary history, but now I was looking at present day distributions which had no relationship to a past distribution. And so to discover things that are living either exclusively in Tibet or exclusively in Eastern Asia, extreme Eastern Asia, all sorts of extraordinary things started to appear out of the woodwork. And with them the consequences that I’m sure you’re aware of now, that they are trying to tell us something, by the way they’ve changed their distributions, about past environments. Notice they are still living species but they live in a different place and that is rather vital because they haven’t evolved to fit the new conditions, they’ve simply moved. And that was the discovery that started off at Upton Warren [laughs] long long ago.


Russell Coope finds that fossil beetles tell a story of climate change

Originally written and recorded as 'Barrett's Privateers' by Stan Rogers

With permission from Fogarty's Cove Records (http://stanrogers.net/)

Performed live and adapted by British Library Writer-in-Residence Rob Sherman and Nick Henderson (http://twitter.com/NickJHenderson) at the British Library, 8th December 2015 

“In the mid-nineteenth century, arguably the brief 'Golden Age' of vernacular organology aboard British ships, Arkwright's Privateers was one of the most popular 'chanteys', or accompanied work-songs, amongst the general maritime population. Though it did encroach upon naval vessels, it was amongst merchant crews and private ventures that it displayed the greatest tenacity; these vessels were often crewed by Midlands men, whose bravery and Romantic fate this song handles. It is also a prime example of the esteem in which sailors from the county of Derbyshire were held, an almost-mythopoeic pedestal from which they have never descended, not even in the present day.

The tune was likely sung on deck to the simple beat of a drum, most often as a 'hand-over-hand chantey', used in the task of setting the jib and other repetitive hauling tasks. The key evidence of this designation is the call-and-response component of each verse's first line, followed by a repeated refrain which keeps a tight rhythm, allowing for methodic application to the task at hand.

Despite its regional appeal, and its reliance on knowledge of mid-English folklore regarding the 'Derbyshire Sailors' and their adventures, versions of it have been recorded by folklorists up and down both littorals of the Atlantic, even as far south as the Antilles.”

Dr. Mark Tollas, from his introduction to 'Hilo, Boys, Hilo: A New History Of The English Ululation'

Learn more about Rob's British Library residency, 'On My Wife's Back' at http://onmywifesback.tumblr.com/ 

Arkwright's Privateers

Where are the current trends in radio and online audio leading? What might radio sound (and look) like on its 2022 centenary? Some leading figures of UK radio come together for a discussion on radio today and tomorrow: Ruth Barnes chairs a panel featuring Matt Deegan (Folder Media/Next Radio conference), Helen Boaden (Director of BBC Radio), Femi Adeyemi (NTS Radio) and journalist/broadcaster Miranda Sawyer. Produced by Rosina Sound & Allanah Chance for the British Library, 16 September 2016.

The Future of Radio

The Copeland-Long restoration of the earliest known recording of computer music, recorded at Alan Turing's Computing Machine Laboratory in Manchester in 1951. Read Copeland and Long's fascinating blog account of the all-night programming session which led to its creation, and Turing's reaction on hearing it the following morning:  http://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2016/09/restoring-the-first-recording-of-computer-music.html

First known recording of computer music, 1951

A short stereo excerpt of a longer 8 channel work. This is a sonic investigation into community and gentrification in the London neighbourhood of Walworth. It has traditionally been a working-class neighbourhood with more recent residents coming from all over the world. The area has been subject to several contentious ‘regeneration’ schemes that have already caused the loss of 1100 socially rented homes of the Heygate Estate.

Elephant Endangered Stereo 1

Cataloging

One of the last Black Country chainmakers, Lucy Woodall, sings the worksong ‘Chainmaker lad is a masher’ and talks about singing. 

Recorded by Roy Palmer in Old Hill, Dudley, West Midlands, England. There was much iron and coal production in this area of England since the 1600s and chainmaking, centered around towns south of Dudley, was a flourishing business, now defunct. Songs like these are documents of our history and heritage. 

The full-length recording from the Traditional music in England collection is on British Library sounds: 
http://sounds.bl.uk/World-and-traditional-music/Traditional-music-in-England/025M-C1023X0040XX-0100V0#

Chainmaker lad is a masher

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Russell Coope finds that fossil beetles tell a story of climate change

The British Library

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