The song of the skylark recorded on Frensham Great Pond, Surrey. This heavily-streaked, ground-dwelling brown bird could be described as nondescript, but the wonderful towering song of the skylark is far from it, remaining the quintessential sound of an early British summer. Skylarks are resident birds, remaining in Britain all year around, although northern populations move away from breeding sites in winter. In summer, the skylark chooses open grassland, heath, and coastal marshes which provide a variety of insects, molluscs, and spiders for food. But in winter, they aggregate in communal flocks in arable and stubble fields that are usually devoid of hedges, to feed on the seeds of plants such as nettles and dock. The male's song flight begins low down whilst rising steeply until it hangs high in the air above its territory, and the long, liquid warble can be heard from quite a distance. The nest is a shallow grass-lined depression and in a successful year a pair of skylarks will raise three broods. As recently as the early 1970's this was a common bird but the current estimated breeding population in Britain has plummeted by 50% to 1,100,000 pairs. This huge drop is thought to be a response to a number of changes in modern agricultural practices.

Shelf mark
W1CDR0001538 BD23

Subjects
Birds

Recording date
1980/05/25

Recording locations
Frensham Great Pond, Surrey: OS Grid Reference(484500,140500)

Recordist
Williams, Aubrey John

Species
Skylark, Alauda arvensis

Image reference pixabay.com/photos/skylark-song…d-sky-lark-4969774/

British Wildlife Recordings

Skylark song, Surrey, England, May 1980

Commercial engineer Alan Plumpton relates his experience in the 1950s introducing electricity into the home, and convincing consumers of the benefits of electrical appliances.

Alan Plumpton interviewed by Thomas Lean, An Oral History of the Electricity Supply Industry in the UK, 2013, British Library, catalogue reference C1495/10. © British Library Board.

Transcript:
Alan Plumpton: So, one of the biggest jobs at that time was to go out into the small villages where we were electrifying them – we started to do electrification in the north-east, at least standardising – and to teach the people there how to use electricity, how to use – how to cook. So, we employed demonstrators, housecraft advisers, and I used to go out every night, on nights, to the WI and [Town’s Women’s 0:00:22] Guilds and give lectures on what electricity meant and how much it was going to cost. And then, the girls would give demonstrations of how to bake cakes and possibly talk to them about washing-machines and gradually interest the people and educate them in the use of electricity.
Thomas Lean: Can you give me some idea of what your sales pitch would have been back in 1950?
Alan: Well, in those days it was a case of saying what was different. The difference was electricity was clean. It hadn’t been available before and it was now available. Something new, novel. No smoke, no danger, no fire, always on tap, and modern equipment, showing them how – the girls would show them how it worked, and made life easier. You know, we used to say, “Don’t let work kill – don’t let the work kill the housewife, let electricity do it for you.”
Thomas: [Laughs] What sort of appliances were you –
Alan: Well, we were selling – basically cooking. Cooking was the heavyweight load, that was the one that was going to use the energy, and then water heating. I mean, immersion heaters were something which nobody – they were new, a brand-new idea, putting an immersion heater in a tank, that they existed. That meant you have electricity whenever you wanted it, save them to get the coal fire to burn the coal and heat the boiler behind the fire, which was – everybody – that’s what everybody did in the north-east. I mean, when I moved into our house in Shiney Row, the wife cooked by coal and heated the water by coal, and we had to light the fire every morning. So, that was another thing we didn’t – we’d explain, we didn’t have to light a fire to get a bath. That was wonderful, well, we thought it was anyway.
[END OF RECORDING – 00:02:04]

(Alan Plumpton) on installing electricity in Britain's homes

Playful. Learning. Sampling. The last moments before the sun goes down. Knowing it will return keeps the darkness away.

09 And the Moon

Michael Southgate describes the process of choosing models for mannequins and comments on the success of the Twiggy mannequin. Copyright British Library.

This clip is taken from the from National Life Stories Collection 'An Oral History of British Fashion': http://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Fashion

You can listen to the full interview (shelfmark C1046/08) at British Library Sounds: http://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Fashion/021M-C1046X0008XX-0001V0

To find out more about National Life Stories visit the British Library website: www.bl.uk/projects/national-life-stories

Michael Southgate: Mannequins

Robert Johnson describes how Bill Knapman would take merchant banker visitors into the cold store until they were frozen, and then take them for tea. Copyright British Library.

Clip taken from the National Life Stories project 'Food: From Source to Salespoint' http://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/food

You can listen to the full interview (shelfmark C821/10) at British Library Sounds: http://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Food/021M-C0821X0010XX-0001V0

To find out more about National Life Stories visit the British Library website: www.bl.uk/projects/national-life-stories

Robert Johnson: Cold Storage

A court clerk discusses the power of legal dress, in particular the wig and gown, to disguise an individual’s identity.

Interview with Michael McKenzie by Dvora Liberman, Crown Court Clerks Life Story Interviews.

Track 6 00:56:34 - 00:57:45
Copyright British Library

You can find the full interview by searching the catalogue reference C1674/07 at www.sami.bl.uk

Transcript:
You look different in a wig and gown, you see. Ewan Montagu, the [judge] I talked about, he dealt with a case and I sat with him, and it was dreadful because the parties for the defendant had got quite emotional and were shouting and so on, and the case finished and he went to prison, the defendant. And the parties were hanging about outside, causing quite a lot of trouble outside. And Ewan came to me to drop something in on my desk with his overcoat on and he was leaving, and I said, ‘You’re not going out the front door are you?’ ‘Yes of course, why not?’, he said. So I said, ‘Well there’s a whole host of the family out there. They’re just going to see you and it’s going to be, you know, very, very difficult. They’ll assault you, I’m sure. Certainly they’ll jostle you and shout abuse at you and so on.’ ‘Ooh, I don’t think so’, he said, much wiser man than I. And do you know, he walked out, and I watched him through the window and he walked straight through that crowd and some of the crowd saw him and looked at him, but he looked different. He didn’t have a wig and gown, and he wasn’t sitting on a bench. Almost unbelievable! One could say, well of course you could see what his face was like, but the evidence was, he walked through the crowd and I don’t think they knew who he was.

A court clerk discusses the power of legal dress

Gail Lewis on her educational experiences and how study groups on topics such as Black politics and anti-colonial theory was part of being a Black Activist in the 1970s.

Interview with Rachel Cohen in 2011, Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation Oral History Project 

C1420/14, Track 2 [01:04:45-01:06:29]

Copyright University of Sussex and The British Library Board
 
This clip forms part of a set of learning resources aimed at A Level Sociology students which was produced during the 'Sociology in the archives' project. The project was an initiative by the British Sociological Association and the British Library to highlight the benefits of archival research in Sociology. This involved a research project which used the British Library's collections to explore the themes of race and education in African, Caribbean and Asian communities in Britain since the 1960s. The learning resources include examples from independent publications, literary accounts, and newspapers.

Gail Lewis on her educational experiences

Nadira Mirza talks about her schooling in England during the 1970s, particularly teachers’ assumptions that the education she received in Pakistan was not equivalent to British Education.

Interview with Rachel Cohen in 2011, Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation Oral History Project 

C1420/17, Track 1 [00:57:42-01:01:02]

Copyright University of Sussex and The British Library Board

This clip forms part of a set of learning resources aimed at A Level Sociology students which was produced during the 'Sociology in the archives' project. The project was an initiative by the British Sociological Association and the British Library to highlight the benefits of archival research in Sociology. This involved a research project which used the British Library's collections to explore the themes of race and education in African, Caribbean and Asian communities in Britain since the 1960s. The learning resources include examples from independent publications, literary accounts, and newspapers.

09 And the Moon

pettythieves