If 2020 was all about lockdown and fear, then 2021 to me was all about release and hope. Of course, the pandemic is not over and controls may be needed for years. But with vaccines available (here in the UK, at least), it was a year when we could cautiously re-enter the world and reactivate our cities.

This is a recording of six of the bells at St Mary Le Bow church (also known as the ‘Bow Bells’) ‘ringing up’ before embarking on a quarter peal at the City of London’s Festival of Bells on 31 July 2021. The purpose of the ‘ringing up’ was to raise the bells from hanging loose mouth down, to being brought to balance up like a cup in readiness for change ringing. 

The powerful, enveloping sound felt to me like an ecstatic release from the dull sadness of lockdown.

The pandemic had left the City eerily quiet. Not only had it been abandoned by commuters and tourists; but bell ringers had also stayed away due to the danger of Covid contagion in cramped bell towers (I’ve written more about this in Chiming during the Pandemic). The Festival of Bells 2021 was promoted as a celebration of London reopening. It took place soon after the last legal restrictions were lifted and people could return to offices. The aim was to get as many of the City’s bells to ring as possible. One of the organisers, Trisha Shannon, told me how she had started the day unlocking bell towers, resetting stopped wall clocks and taking down calendars hanging open at March 2020.

St Mary Le Bow was the first church to perform change ringing that day; and by extension also the first since March 2020. There’s a famous saying that to be a true Londoner you have to be born within earshot of Bow Bells. It’s why I think of the bell tower as the sonic centre of London. And it’s why the sound felt to me like a reactivation of the City’s soundscape from its heart.


Recorded in St Mary le Bow's courtyard by Rosie Oliver, 31st July 2021

Ringing out after lockdown: Bow Bells

In this clip, three siblings recall their childhood elocution lessons in the 1950s. It's taken from a privately commissioned Spoken Portrait that I produced about their childhood. For logistical reasons, I interviewed the brother separately from the two sisters. I had a lot of fun setting things up so that I could weave their voices together as if they were all in the same room sharing stories, sometimes pitching in with more details, sometimes gently contradicting one another.

Elocution Lessons

I spent a week dog sitting in Amsterdam, by the Vondelpark. As I took the dogs on their walks I enjoyed how we synched up our paces: three dog steps to my one. I then started to notice the other beats around me - from the ticking kitchen clock where I was staying, to the cycles, birds, dogs and traffic crossing blips. I took my field recorder out with me on one of our walks to capture those sounds for this little 'sonic postcard'.

Vondelpark Beats

The first of a series of short audio podcasts about Operation Deep Freeze (www.operationdeepfreeze.com), a Greenwich-based art and food growing project. Features artist Lisa Cheung (www.lisacheung.com) and Paul Green (www.avantgardening.org) introducing the project and describing the workshops that took place in February 2014.

Operation Deep Freeze, February 2014

My wonderful dad recalls hearing about the end of the war, as a six year old boy.

This snippet is taken from a Spoken Portrait I produced for his 80th birthday in 2018. It featured my dad and his two brothers talking about what it was like growing up in the 1940s and 50s at a time of shortages and rationing. 

This particular story had a real resonance with me during lockdown when church bells stopped ringing, just as in the war. So I've paired it with a recording I made of Bow Bells ringing out for the first time after lockdown, much like the VE day bells in 1945. 

I recorded the birdsong on my dad's cousin's farm.

Peace Breaks Out

Introducing Women in Revolt!

Episode 1: Ferocious and magnificent

Episode 2: There's something not right here

Episode 3: Transgression

Episode 4: "We need to change the course!"

Episode 5: A time of possibility

Episode 6: Tough!

Listen to Rosie Oliver introduce A Rubbish Trip: the surprising London walk that she leads for Dotmaker Tours. For more information about A Rubbish Trip visit www.dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/rubbish.

About A Rubbish Trip

Listen to Rosie Oliver introduce London In Slow Motion: the surprising London walk that she leads for Dotmaker Tours. For more information about London In Slow Motion visit www.dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/slowlondon.

About London In Slow Motion

Listen to Rosie Oliver introduce A Power Walk: the surprising London walk that she leads for Dotmaker Tours. For more information about A Power Walk visit www.dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/power.

About A Power Walk

Here’s another podcast about Operation Deep Freeze (www.operationdeepfreeze.com), a Greenwich-based art and food growing project. It features artist Lisa Cheung (www.lisacheung.com) talking about the launch of the mobile ice cream making unit in May 2014, and Paul Green (www.avantgardening.org) leading one of the workshops for kids at the Greenwich Pleasaunce.

Launch of a mobile ice-cream making unit: Operation Deep Freeze, May 2014 (podcast)

Listen to Rosie Oliver introduce The London Ear: the guided walk all about sound and listening that she leads for Dotmaker Tours. For more information  visit www.dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/londonear.

Introducing The London Ear (guided walk)

Here are some short clips from an Audio Tribute we were asked to produce for a very special mother on her 80th birthday. It's an example of a project based purely on recorded telephone interviews with people all over England and, in this case, as far afield as Texas.

The full 18 minute piece featured stories about her life from childhood through to retirement from her oldest friends and family, This Is Your Life style. Find out more on our blog at https://spokenportraits.co.uk/spoken-portrait/stories-over-the-telephone/

Telephone Tribute for an 80th Birthday (clips)

You can learn a lot over the telephone!

Here's a little 3.5 minute piece I produced about calls through a telephone operator in the Midlands in the 1950s. It's based on a recorded landline conversation with one of my favourite raconteurs, a couple of weeks into lockdown in April 2020.


Image c1955, from Nick Dewolf Photo archive.

The Telephone Operator

This is the first in a series of ‘Meet the Maker’ podcasts that we produced for LUSH cosmetics, in collaboration with Cathy Haynes (narrator). 

The aim of the series was to give a sensory rich insight into the craft of making. Here, we follow Master Paper Maker Gary Fuller at Frogmore Mill as he produces a new kind of packaging paper using banana fibre.

Meet the paper maker

These excerpts come from a 50th birthday tribute produced during lockdown. As the birthday boy is a keen historian, Tickertape came up with the idea of an affectionate, humorous audio portrait of him 'Through The Ages’. We divided it into tracks called ‘Adam at 10’, ‘Adam at 15’ and so on, and asked friends from different stages of his life to paint a picture of what he was like. We interviewed most of them over the internet and gathered recorded voice messages from the rest. In all there were 22 contributors from San Francisco to India. We carefully wove the best of the material together into a 50 minute portrait that his family presented and played to him as a surprise on his birthday. For more information about our Spoken Portraits and tributes visit https://tickertapeproductions.co.uk/spoken-portraits

Adam Through the Ages: Audio Tribute (excerpts)

These two short extracts come from a one-hour piece in which Sir Bob Scott recalls his time as Managing Director of the Manchester Palace and Opera House from 1977 to 1991. We produced the Spoken Portrait for Sir Bob who had been meaning to write his memoirs for years but was struggling to put pen to paper. We discussed the scope of the project and decided to focus on this particular chapter of his extraordinary career, as it was so rich in great stories. We based the portrait on interviews with Sir Bob at his home.

Recording © Rosie Oliver, Tickertape Productions, 2015

The Manchester Theatre Years: Spoken Portrait of Sir Bob Scott

Founder of LongstaffLongstaff, Sophie Barnard talks about her design career and the joy that goes into her work. To find out more visit https://longstafflongstaff.com/about-longstaff-longstaff/

Audio piece produced from an online interview, January 2021

Introducing Sophie

Examples of our audio features, podcasts, spoken portraits and sounds. For more information visit the website or contact Rosie Oliver at rosie[at]tickertapeproductions.co.uk

Tickertape Productions

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