In this post, local poet and storyteller Christopher Jelley talks about the process of using the Exmoor Oral History Archive to write two self-guided walks around the town of Dulverton.
There is something innately fragile about oral histories, a little like pinning a butterfly or capturing the perfume of a flower, they are beautiful, enticing and inherently transient. Listening back into them is like stepping into a foreign land and in many ways the Exmoor oral histories are exactly that, a foreign land. They talk of icy journeys across moorlands, hot treks with baskets of fish for the lords of the manors (and guests) they talk of the sounds of the steam trains bringing General Eisenhower and 100’s of troops to equip for war. They talk of pony rides to school and long waits for the postman, and how all clothes, hats and skirts seemed to be always coloured brown!
Many of these memories, recorded around the turn of the millennium, are from locals and residents who have now passed on, they reach right back into the servant classes of the 1900s through their parents and touch on a world unaffected by pandemics and all the modern developments of the intervening years.
Their voices, captured by Birdie Johnson for the Dulverton and District Civic Society, have now been digitised to the highest standard through the British Library’s Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project and will be preserved for all time.
© Mark J Rattenbury
My involvement with the project started late spring 2021 when I was approached by the South West Heritage Trust, to create a couple of walking trails in Dulverton to celebrate these recordings. Part of the process was to listen to as much of the content as possible, but with over 200 hours this was not realistic, so a more focused approach was required. Birdie Johnson, the original interviewer was able to guide me along with Jane de Gruchy and Esther Hoyle from South West Heritage Trust towards recordings directly connected with Dulverton. But this was still no small task, so many a car journey over the past few months has been accompanied by Exmoor voices, talking of blizzards, confetti fetes and rabbit roasts. Widow twankey popped up, the irregularities of an old school curriculum, church meets and memories of the formidable Dr McKinney.
Out of all these recordings I have had to choose a few to thread together into two town trails, one will run clockwise, the other anticlockwise but both beginning at the statue of Lorna Doone, Exmoor Lawns. Primarily they can be listened to as you walk, pausing between points of interest around the town, but we felt it was important that they could also be enjoyed without the need to be physically in the town.
The sound walks are available to download here.
Guided Walk, 11 September
Enjoy a guided walk with Christopher Jelley, as he introduces you to voices of Dulverton past.
