Sounds of the South West - listen and learn...

Sounds of the South West aims to preserve our region's valuable audio heritage by digitising at risk recordings, ensuring that local history is saved for the future. This has given us a chance to spend time listening to some of the fascinating and revealing audio recordings which have now been digitised from our collections at Gloucestershire Archives. We wanted to find ways to share it extracts and full-length recordings with you. To create the short illustrated or digital stories, a group of volunteers came along to a workshop.  They were provided with short audio clips and images from the archives.  Thanks so much to all the volunteers for their hard work on this. We love what you’ve done!  

To hear what’s been published so far - click Sounds of the South West - Gloucestershire Archives

Stories so far include Agnes Davis, born in 1897 talking about life in the Forest of Dean (illustrated with beautiful drawings by children from Coleford Local History day); H J Massingham poetic talk on woodland bird, from around 1930s; Roger Staley’s reflections on the impact of foot and mouth disease on his farm in Thornbury (2001) and Mr Leslie Workman’s memories of life growing up in Sheepscombe.

Coming soon:

Mr Charles Smith talks about his memories of Hardwicke Court where his mother was second nanny to the Lloyd-Bakers.

Deryck Huby, on salmon fishing on the Severn.

Jack Cale – basket maker of Quedgeley

All of these stories have been made possible, thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.  Have a listen and see what you think!