Over the past few weeks I have been listening back to the ‘Black Country Stories’ that I’ve recorded during the last six months. The stories are the personal memories and experiences of a wide range of people, who were photographed by Martin Parr earlier this year. And these people are as diverse as they are […]

By Julia Letts, Project Interviewer Ever wondered what it’s like to work in a brewery? Yesterday I got the chance to interview Phil Parkinson at Marston’s in Wolverhampton, to record his personal story of living and working in the Black Country. Phil doesn’t come from this part of the world, but he calls it home […]

By Julia Letts Last Wednesday, I watched on as Alison McKee and Shaun Evans, our two Black Country Stories volunteers from Wolverhampton had their first go at oral history interviewing. Neither of them had ever done anything like this before, but a couple of months ago, they signed up to our oral history volunteer programme […]

By Julia Letts 1st March, 2012 For the last six months, I have been recording memories and experiences of people who live and work in the Black Country. Many of them were photographed by Martin Parr for Black Country Stories, but my interviews don’t just cover what they are doing in the photographs. We often […]

By Julia Letts Over the last few months the Black Country Stories team has been working with a group of volunteers who’ve been trained to undertake some oral history recordings. Most of the group had never done anything like this before but have enjoyed the challenge and have been surprised at how much they’ve learnt. […]