Windrush Day

In commemoration of Windrush Day, the Museum of London has released, for the first time, a selection of unheard oral histories from its collection. Recorded in 2018 as part of the Conversation Booth project at The Arrival event in City Hall, the Windrush Conversations tell each individual’s unique story of arrival in London and their time and experience in the city since. Exploring what Britain looked like to the Windrush generation, these honest accounts provide an insight into the strong sense of identity as well as the strength of character and resilience of a community in the face of adversity and discrimination that lingers to this day. These personal stories have been uncovered by community volunteers as part of the museum’s Listening to London project, which explores and reinterprets stories from the museum’s extensive oral history collection. For full story click here and see a link to the Windrush oral histories here.

Oral Historians jobs axed at Museum of London

The Museum of London (MoL) has confirmed that it will make 17 posts redundant in order to address a deficit to its operating budget. The museum needs to reduce its budget by £1m before April 2014 and said that shrinking its workforce was the only realistic way to cut year-on-year fixed costs.  The redundancies will hit a range of functions and levels across the organisation. The museum said it plans to axe all of its dedicated oral historian posts and focus on “digital collecting”.

This is a worrying trend where the value of collecting oral histories has been diminished.  See full story here.