17.2.14 North West Sound Archive

Today we had a visit form the lovely people at the North West Sound Archive. The Archive is based at Clitheroe castle and run by a small team of dedicated people who gather interviews and sounds that document the social history of the NorthWest. They have all kinds of things in their archive, weaving loom sounds, nursery rhymes, conversations with WW1 veterans, school performances all dating back to the 1800's and captured on a variety of formats from wax cylinder to mp3 files.

The NWSA folks demonstrated how to use our new audio recorders and gave us some tips on the best ways to interview people and capture the most interesting and useful information.

After our introductory session we headed out into the town centre to gather some recordings. Vic first took us to a couple of spots in the centre where the river is most visible and audible and we captured a bit of the river's voice.

Afterwards we headed into the shopping areas and attempted to ask passers-by about their connections with Burnley's rivers and asked questions like: Which parts of the river do you visit or walk along in Burnley? Did you have special riverside areas that you visited as a child? Do you live close to a river? etc.

The girls had more luck than I did! Everyone I approached presumed I was trying to sell them something so I had a lot of "No thank you's"!

I was really proud of how gutsy the girls were, it's no easy thing to approach strangers and ask them questions. Despite all being really nervous about it, they all did one interview each. 
Then we went for hot chocolates as a reward!