| The blog of the Essex Record Office, the storehouse of Essex history

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Communicating Connections, Essex Record Office’s project exploring the history and legacy of the Marconi Company is finally underway after being delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Here, Project Co-ordinator and Oral Historian, Laura Owen, talks us through how the project is developing and how the project team have adapted to local and national restrictions. Anyone who has ever been involved with oral history willtell you that the beauty of a community based oral history project is the joyof meeting new people and learning about their lives for the few hours you’reinterviewing someone. They’ll usually offer you a warm invitation into theirhome, make you a (sometimes) lovely cup of tea and be willing to talk abouttheir lives, memories and no doubt, opinions. However, all this came crashingto a halt when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. For me, I was looking forward torecruiting volunteers and getting on with collecting the stories of people whoworked at the Marconi Company and who were involved in the company in otherways. We decided to postpone the start of the project until, we hoped, we couldsafely begin interviewing in-person. When a second national lockdown began tolook likely and was eventually announced I conceded to the fact that ourinterviews for the project would have to be done remotely. Our search for volunteers in October brought in so muchinterest, and I had amazing conversations with everyone who applied which Ithoroughly enjoyed. In the end, we recruited 10 wonderful volunteers to conductour oral history interviews – an increase from our planned 6 – and we underwenttraining in oral history interviewing delivered by Rib Davis, an accreditedtrainer from the Oral History Society which was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone.The shift to remote, online interviewing brought us newchallenges; we had to look into how we could actually record our interviews andstill keep archive quality, and of course there are now more logisticalchallenges relating to the passing of equipment between both volunteerinterviewers and our interviewees. But some positives have come out of thesechanges: we are now able to interview people all over the country (andpotentially around the world) which wouldn’t have been possible if we wereconducting all of our interviews in-person. After numerous changes and Zoom meetings, our interviews arenow underway! As I’m writing this, we’ve currently interviewed 2 ex-Marconiemployees about their time at the Company and their memories of their work andcolleagues. As things stand, we’ll be interviewing into the New Year so pleasedo get in touch if you or someone you know was involved with Marconi’s. Women who worked for Marconi or had an involvement in the company in any capacityPeople of colour and/or migrants who worked for or had an involvement in the company People who may not have worked directly for Marconi, but their company dealt with Marconi in some way People who did not have Management responsibilities or worked in lower ranks of the company People who may not have had an entirely positive experience with the company and/or were affected by mass redundancies People who met their husband/wife at the company North-East Essex Coastal Parishes. Part 1: St Osyth, Great and Little Clacton, Frinton, Great Holland and Little HollandThe latest volume of the Victoria County History of the County of Essex has been presented to Martin Astell the Essex Record Office Manager. This is the first of two volumes covering the North East Essex coastal parishes, from St Osyth to Walton on the Naze. Boydell and Brewer are also offering a spectacular 35% off for a limited period only. More details on that can be found below. All of the Victoria County History volumes draw heavily on the documents which are held at the Essex Record Office.The nine Essex parishes lying in a coastal district between St Osyth and the Naze headland at Walton encompass a number of distinct landscapes, from sandy cliffs to saltmarshes, recognised as environmentally significant. The landscape has constantly changed in response to changing sea levels, flooding, draining and investment in sea defences. Inland, there was an agriculturally fertile plateau based on London Clay, but with large areas of Kesgrave sands and gravels, loams and brickearths. Parts were once heavily wooded, especially at St Osyth.The district was strongly influenced by the pattern of estate ownership, largely held by St Paul’s Cathedral from the mid-10th century. About 1118-19 a bishop of London founded a house of Augustinian canons at St Osyth, which became one of the wealthiest abbeys in Essex. Most other manors and their demesnes in the district were small and their demesne tenants were of little more than local significance. Martin Astell, the Essex Record Office Manager adds the ERO s copy of volume XII to the Searchroom shelves.The area’s economy was strongly affected by the coast and its many valuable natural resources, including the extraction or manufacture of sand, gravel, septaria, copperas and salt, and activities such as fishing, tide milling, wrecking and smuggling. However, it remained a largely rural district and its wealth ultimately depended upon the state of farming. Until the eighteenth century it specialised in dairying from both sheep and cattle, but afterwards production shifted towards grain. The coastal area has produced significant evidence of early man and was heavily exploited and settled in prehistory. The medieval settlement pattern largely conformed to a typical Essex model, with a complex pattern of small villages, hamlets and dispersed farms, many located around greens or commons. Introduction: The North East Essex Coast; St Osyth; Great and Little Clacton; Frinton; Great Holland; Little Holland; Glossary; Note on Sources; and, Bibliography.Frequently over the last several months commentators have compared living through the COVID-19 pandemic to life on the Home Front in the Second World War. Is that a valid comparison? What was it really like to live through that major event? Thankfully, there are still some people who remember those years and can share their stories with us.Southend Achievement Through Football (ATF) is an organisation dedicated to changing lives through football, especially the lives of young people at risk of exclusion. By participation in sports and other recreational activities, young people develop skills and capacities to mature into individuals and members of society. But they do not just stop at sport. ATF also helps young people develop their sense of self by finding out about their heritage.Building on the successful Heroes and Villains project, which allowed young people to explore the stories of individuals from Southend’s past, further funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund has allowed Southend ATF to encourage young people to hear the stories of residents in local sheltered accommodation. After training provided by ERO, Southend ATF interviewed 18 people specifically about their memories of the Second World War. The participants ranged in age, from those who were still children in the 1940s, to those who were old enough to fight or serve the war effort in some other way. Thus the collection contains multiple perspectives, with different levels of understanding about current events, and different levels of impact experienced. Many of the participants grew up in London and were therefore prey to the Blitz and the stresses and strains that caused. Some were evacuated, some stayed at home. Some had family members who served in the military, some lost loved ones either at home or abroad, and some came through the ordeal relatively unscathed. Therefore there is no one common experience of what living through the War was like: it depended on personal circumstances.For instance, the extent to which people’s lives were disrupted by air raids depended on where they were living. Robbie spent much of the War as a Land Army girl, posted to a farm outside Witham to help keep the country’s agriculture growing and fill the gaps of men sent overseas to fight. While all the rural residents had air raid shelters, she found them unnecessary overkill in those quieter areas.‘We [the Land Army girls] never used it, only the country people used it they thought they were in the thick of the war, you know, and nothing ever happened.’ The difference between life in London and life outside hit home on a day trip she took to the capital early in the War, when she first saw the scale of the devastation caused by intense enemy bombing. Finally, most participants commented on the sense of relief when celebrating VE Day, Victory in Europe Day, on 8 May 1945. Although the War was not yet over, with fighting continuing against Japan until August, VE Day marked the start of the end: no more fear of bombs, no more disrupted nights of dashing into air raid shelters. But life did not return to normality straight away. Rationing continued into the 1950s. Servicemen returned home only gradually – Fred, who served in the Army, describes long periods of time spent in Germany and Italy after VE Day, just waiting to be sent home. He was not demobilised until 1947. And the war changed people irreversibly, meaning life could never again be the same.Many thanks go to the participants who shared their remarkable stories for future generations to learn from, and to Southend ATF for taking the time to record these precious, unique stories and then share them with ERO for others to listen and enjoy.You can listen to themed compilations of clips from all the interviews on our SoundCloud channel.Are you interested in local history? Maybe you know someone who worked for the Marconi Company? Communicating Connections have a unique opportunity for you to get directly involved in the collection of some of Chelmsford’s most well-known history. Find out more about how to get involved in this exciting project as a Volunteer Oral History Interviewer below. CommunicatingConnections is an oral history-based community heritage project funded by theNational Lottery Heritage Fund, with contributions from Essex 2020 and theFriends of Historic Essex. It will explore the heritage of the Marconi Company,one of the most famous telecommunications and engineering companies in theworld, based in Chelmsford. We will collect and archive oral history interviewswith past employees of the company which will then inform an exhibition and aheritage trail app. Chelmsford is known locally as the birthplace of radio ,so we want to share this heritage with the local and wider community.We re looking for 6 volunteer oral history interviewers to conduct 30interviews in total with veterans of the Marconi Company. Full training in oralhistory interviewing will be provided by the Oral History Society and furthersupport will be available throughout the project so there s no need for priororal history or interviewing experience.We anticipate that interviewing will begin in November 2020, but pleasenote this may change due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and governmentguidelines. All activities and interviews will be risk assessed and Covid-19procedures will be in place.Pleasedirect any questions to the Project Co-ordinator, Laura Owen at communicatingconnections@gmail.comDr Alina Congreve introduces this exciting new network of Archives and Museums across the country. With Essex being the home to three major new towns, all falling into different stages of the movement (Harlow, Basildon and South Woodham Ferrers), it promises to be of particular relevance to this county.Essex Record Office are excited to be the lead partner for a new national network for post-war new towns. This new network brings together the archives and museums that hold significant collections of post-war new town material. It involves 19 archives and museums from across England. The purpose of the network is to share knowledge between members about activities relating to new town archives. This includes sharing good practice in cataloguing; engaging with families and young people; working with local history and heritage societies; and making links with researchers and universities. The members of the new network are at very different stages of engagement with their new town collections, and there is significant potential for peer learning. Secondly, the network provides time and space to develop larger scale collaborative funding bids. The network is open to new members in England and we welcome interest from from museums, local history centres and academics researching new towns.New towns mark animportant turning point in British history and are a unique contribution tourban development. British new towns have relevance today for new townsbeing rapidly developed in Asia, Africa, South America and ‘new’ new townsbeing planned here in Britain. Many British new towns are facing a period ofrapid change, with the developments of the post-war period being replaced withlittle thought given to the original intentions in their design, or architecturalsignificance of the buildings that are removed.These post-war new townsare paradoxically popular with their long-term residents while having a poorexternal perception.Greater engagement with new town archives can helpmake connections between long-term New Town residents and recent arrivals,helping to build community and aid social integration.The archivecollection of some new towns have drawn the attention of international scholarsand generated books, journal articles and symposia.Others have hadrelatively little attention, in part due to the lack of cataloguing and also alow profile of the collections. A better understanding of our post-warnew towns can be valuable in positively shaping their future, and thisunderstanding can be achieved through greater access to and engagement withpost-war archives.To find out moreabout the network please contact Richard Anderson at Essex Record Office on Richard.anderson@essex.gov.ukor Dr Alina Congreve the network co-ordinator on alina@congrevemail.co.ukDuring our closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic we have been working hard adding new entries to our catalogue Essex Archives Online . Archivist Katharine Schofield takes a look at one of these documents which reveals that rights of way disputes aren t a modern invention.the entries added to our online catalogue during ‘lockdown’ are calendars ofmedieval deeds, dating from the early 13th century onwards, relateto various small properties mostly in Hatfield Broad Oak. The deeds are part of the Barrington collection(D/DBa).Not all of the calendared deeds related to the Barrington family’s possessions at the time, although they may have subsequently acquired the land. They include the ratification of an agreement (D/DBa T4/253) between William le Cook of Broad Street and Hatfield Priory, dated at Hatfield Broad Oak on the Monday after Epiphany in the 18th year of the reign of Edward III (10 January 1345) and it concerns a dispute over access. John de Barynton’ is listed as the first of the witnesses.access in contention is described as a footpath 6 feet wide leading throughBykmereslane beyond William’s property Bykmerescroft towards Munkmelnes wherethe Priory’s mill was located. CanonFrancis Galpin identified Bykemere Street or Lane as the present-day DunmowRoad (B183) past the junction of the High Street and Broad Street (EssexReview volume 44, page 88). Hedescribed the name as a corruption of Byg (or big) mere, probably derived fromthe nearby ponds. The ponds stillvisible on maps today presumably provided the water power needed for thePriory’s mill.agreement recites that there had been ‘contention’ between William and thePriory over the footpath. The Prioryproduced deeds from their archives (ostensionem munimentorum), made byWilliam’s predecessors, tenants of Bykmerescroft. The archives had demonstrated that the Prioryand all others were accustomed to use the footpath to the mill and had theright to do so. Consequently, Williamagreed to make rectification.Mills were a vital part of the medieval economy.  At the beginning of the 13th century, it has been estimated that there were between 10 and 15,000 mills in England.  They were also a key part of the income of a manorial lord.  Lords were able to compel their tenants to use their mills, paying for the right to do so.  It has been estimated that payments from mills made up 5% of manorial income at the beginning of the 14th century (John Langdon ‘Lordship and Peasant Consumerism in the milling Industry of Early Fourteenth Century England’ Past and Present 145, pages 3-46, November 1994).  The Priory was anxious not to have access to their mill disrupted and their record keeping ensured that they were able to prove their rights and request remedy.today, among the many people visiting the Record Office and using the archives,it is not unusual for people to try to solve access problems, although mostlyby using Ordnance Survey maps, rather than medieval deeds.University of Essex MA student Grace Benham reflects on her placement spent working on a collection of oral history interviews tracing the history of women s refuges in Essex. You can read her previous blog posts here.Uncovering the hidden history of Women’s Refuges in Essex has been as rewarding as it has been difficult. The struggle of the women, and men, who fought to recognise the importance of protecting women from abusive histories, though tragic in its need, is incredibly inspiring.In my academic history background, I have rarely delved into feminist history, and especially British feminist history, which surprises most as I have also been an outspoken advocate for women. This choice is rooted in two fundamental reasons: firstly, it is difficult to see the hatred and vile attitudes towards women that existed not so long ago which the matriarchs of my family would have grown up with, and it is hard to reconcile that with the privileges we hold today. But, more than this, I had never seen myself as a very ‘good’ feminist; in my younger years I failed to recognise nuance and my own privileges. But an important lesson from those who have dedicated decades of their lives for others is that, despite differences, unity for the common good is absolutely more important.this collection was daunting to say the least. My own personalexperience with abuse in a romantic relationship which had motivatedthe selection of this collection also made going through thismaterial hard. However, the hidden histories of Women’s Refugesalso provides a wealth of hope in the selfless willingness to helpthose who need it and to fight for everything they’ve got. The oral history collection, ‘You Can’t Beat a Woman’, comprises stories from Colchester, Chelmsford, Ipswich, Grays, and Basildon and the women who worked, lived, and fought for refuges from domestic abuse (the interviews pertaining to London were beyond the remit of this placement). All stories which, although containing some collaboration and inspiration, tell of formidable and dedicated women who, born from the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s, took it upon themselves to fight for Women’s Refuges in a time when domestic abuse was not taken seriously at all, let alone seriously enough. For an example of such strength and sacrifice, one should only look to Moyna Barnham MBE, who in her interview tells of how she would go alone in the middle of the night to collect ‘battered women’, having to go up against the abusers, such a dangerous role that one night her husband even followed her to ensure her safety. Such bravery is to of course be commended, but it is also unfortunate that the police and local welfare workers were not there for these women, and it was up to independent volunteers to provide such a service. I also believe that such a study has come at an unfortunately poignant time as the tragic rise of people, particularly women, seeking help with domestic abuse during the lockdown period of COVID-19 paints a painful picture of the persistence of the problem. It is also important in such discourse to recognise nuance. In Alison Inman’s interview, a key figure at both Basildon and Colchester Refuges, she describes how society expects a ‘perfect victim’ of domestic abuse, i.e. an innocent and naïve woman. However the reality is that domestic abuse occurs in every gender, every sexuality, every class, and every age; it is a universal problem. I feel that the current COVID-19 domestic abuse discourse highlights this problem and its nuances. A recent BBC Panorama investigation revealed not only the scale:‘Panorama has found in the first seven weeks of UK lockdown someone called police for help about domestic abuse every 30 seconds that s both female and male victims.’BBC PANORAMA PROGRAMME BROADCAST 17 AUGUST 2020But this investigation also showed a lacklustre government response that should not belong to a society that has, apparently, been acknowledging this problem since the 1970s.‘It took the Westminster government 19 days after imposing restrictions to announce a social media campaign to encourage people to report domestic abuse, as well as an extra £2m for domestic abuse helplines.’BBC PANORAMA, 17 AUGUST 2020Of course the lockdown was an unprecedented event that, hopefully, exists in isolation, but surely such a demonstration of the terror in some people’s homes shows in undeniable terms that domestic abuse and violence remain problems, and the services and education addressing the problem are underfunded and underrepresented. Therefore, what we can glean from this oral history collection is an invaluable educational resource on how to combat domestic abuse, and to be inspired by those who came before us.This truly has been a transformative experience, both personally and as a historian, and I would like to extend my warmest thanks to the Friends of Historic Essex for their funding of the project.If you need support to deal with Domestic Abuse, please call the helpline below or check out the following guidance.Please Note: This blog post contains potentially upsetting material that may not be suitable for all. Our University of Essex placement student Grace Benham reviews some themes emerging from her work on the You Can t Beat a Woman oral history project about the founding of women s refuges in Essex and London. Read her first blog post here.In September 1976, after years of domestic abuse, Maurice Wells shot his wife Suzanne dead and held his daughter hostage in the ensuing siege of his home in Colchester. In February 1977 he was sentenced to manslaughter and served a ten-year sentence. Chris Graves, a solicitor who aided Colchester Refuge in its inception, credits the outraged reaction to such a short sentence to his own involvement, and the refuge movement as a whole.Colchester Refuge had been in the works previous to this case. Many of the interviewees recorded for the You Can t Beat a Woman project (Acc. SA853) explained how the refuge was born out of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s, which had come over from America and gained its own life in Britain. However, the Wells case, a case which myself and everyone else I have discussed this with have never heard of, highlights an important theme of both the past and the present, the privatisation of domestic violence. According to the Daily Gazette, once out of prison Wells went on to commit crimes against children and told his victims that if they reported him, he could kill them like he killed his wife.This story is one of many featured on the ‘You Can’t Beat a Woman’ website and one of many that are unheard amongst the general public. Domestic violence is, generally, an inherently private crime as it occurs within private spheres, but the issue goes beyond just this. The prevalence of domestic violence, which only became properly acknowledged in the 1970s following the Women’s Liberation movement, created uncomfortable questions, shame and denial. It could be easy to dismiss domestic violence because it occurred ‘behind closed doors’. Alison Inman recalls a story in which a local authority in Essex refused to set up a refuge because they didn’t have domestic violence within their borough’, which led to an increase in women from that area entering neighbouring refuges. Moreover, the women who needed refuges and would go on to become residents typically were those of lower classes due to the fact that those with available resources would have other options to avoid going into a refuge. This builds a stereotype of a certain type of woman who suffered domestic violence, even though this is a problem that affects all classes, all races, all genders, all sexualities. Such women could be demonised for their choices as they had little to no one defending them. These women could also be silenced through the normalisation of violence in working class marriages. Normalisation occurred through popular culture, such as the Andy Capp comics that featured in the Daily Mirror from 1957 to 1965, which regularly portrayed domestic violence as not only humorous but as a normal and acceptable way to treat one’s wife, particularly within working class marriages. Another facet of this conversation that has slowed bringing the issue of domestic violence the time, energy and funding it deserves are the elements of shame and denial which are intrinsically linked. Rachel Wallace, who addresses domestic violence and humour, in particular in regard to Andy Capp, makes excellent observations on how humour is used in a response to shame. She depicts how these comics would not have been a success without an audience. In validating a taboo subject that is, unfortunately, rife in our society, such an audience finds themselves validated and vindicated, and therefore the shame is diminished. Much like denial, humour is used as a defence against shame, and it is hard to argue that those who were indifferent to domestic violence would find humour in such situations. We can see examples of this use of humour within this oral history collection, with councillors joking about how their wives treat them in response to being petitioned for refuges, with change only coming, according to Moyna Barnham, when the law required councils to provide homes for ‘battered women’, a burden councils did not typically want to bear.The future of refuges and reform around the handling of domestic violence situations require us to recognise the lessons of the past, and the need for education and recognising nuance. I had the great honour of attending a talk regarding a project titled ‘Sisters Doing it for Themselves’ , a collaborative project by the Women’s Refuge Centre and the London School of Economics. For this project, leading figures of the women’s volunteer sector in London are interviewed by schoolchildren, to not only teach oral history practices to a younger generation and collate such vital histories but also in order for both parties to learn something from the other. The main points of this talk resonated with these interviews that occurred in 2016 and 2017 regarding women’s refuges in the East of England, in that there is an emphasis going forward on education and nuance, both of which were crucial in the first founding of women’s refuges. To confront the denial, shame, blame and stereotypes around domestic violence is surely only a step in the right direction. We are grateful to the Friends of Historic Essex and the University of Essex for their financial support in making this placement possible. Wallace, Rachel. 2018. She’s Punch Drunk!! : Humor, Domestic Violence, and the British Working Class in Andy Capp Cartoons, 1957–65. Journal of Popular Culture 51 (1): 129–51. doi:10.1111/jpcu.12646.If you need support to deal with domestic abuse, please call the helpline below or check out the following guidance.Archive catalogues can be difficult to use. There are differences between structured archive catalogues describing archival records that comply with the international cataloguing standard (ISAD-G) and a free-text Internet search box. While the homepage of Essex Archives Onlinelooks like a basic text search box, using it like an Internet search engine will not give the best results.Part of the Heritage Lottery Funded project, You Are Hear: sound and a sense of place, involves cataloguing some of the thousands of unique sound and video recordings in the Essex Sound and Video Archive (ESVA). Cataloguing the records makes it easier for users to locate relevant material, but only if the catalogue descriptions can be found. We try to catalogue with discoverability in mind, but we thought it might be useful to share some tips on how to find sound and video archives in particular through Essex Archives Online.As reported in an earlier blog entry, we updated Essex Archives Online to allow you to play sound and video recordings directly through the catalogue. To find these recordings, select ‘Audio Visual’ in the ‘Refine your search’ box, and then type terms that interest you into the main text box. You will need to create an account and log before you can play the recordings, but you do not need to subscribe.Tip: To browse all the sound recordings currently uploaded to the catalogue, select ‘Audio Visual’ in the ‘Refine your search’ box, then type ‘sa’ in the main search box. To browse all the video recordings, select ‘Audio Visual’ in the ‘Refine your search box’, then type ‘va’ in the main search box. We can explain why this works if you are interested, but otherwise just trust us that it (mostly) works!However, we can only gradually upload digitised recordings to the catalogue. Also, copyright on some of the recordings prohibits us from making them available online. This means that we have many, many more sound and video recordings which cannot be played through the catalogue, but only by ordering them to play in the Playback Room at the Essex Record Office (or by purchasing a copy). These recordings won’t show up if you refine your search only to ‘Audio Visual’ records. So how do you find something in the ESVA that might be of interest to you?When we catalogue material, we give each document or recording a Reference Number. This helps to uniquely identify the recording. It’s not a random collection of letters and numbers (though it might seem like it!): each part gives clues about the document and how it fits with other material.The Reference Numbers for all sound recordings start with ‘SA’, for ‘Sound Archive’. So the easiest way to narrow your search to find sound recordings is to include ‘sa’ as one of your search terms.Similarly, the Reference Numbers for all video recordings start with ‘VA’, for ‘Video Archive’. To find video recordings, include ‘va’ as one of your search terms.Tip: You will still get some results that are not sound or video recordings. Change the sort by box at the top-right to ‘Reference’. This will display your results in alphabetical order by Reference Number. Scroll down to the Reference Numbers that begin with ‘SA’ or ‘VA’.So far so good, but how do you know what to search for? Unlike the majority of the documents in the Essex Record Office, you might find some ESVA recordings by searching for an individual’s name. If the individual has been recorded in an oral history interview, or featured in a local radio piece, then his or her name should be included in the catalogue entry.But you will probably find more results by searching for a place or subject. For example, perhaps you want to learn more about how Willingale has changed over time. If you type in ‘Willingale’ and ‘sa’ in the search boxes, you will find eleven sound recordings, mostly oral history interviews with long-standing residents. These might reveal information about local businesses, notable local families, services in the village – and especially people’s memories of the American servicemen stationed nearby during the Second World War.Tip: Our search engine is not case sensitive. This means it does not matter whether you type ‘Willingale’, ‘willingale’, ‘WILLINGALE’, or ‘WiLliNGalE’: it will come up with the same results.Or maybe you want to find out what people were eating in the early twentieth century. Try typing ‘meals’ and ‘sa’ in the search boxes. You should find oral history recordings that include memories of what the interviewees ate as children (bread, dripping, and fresh fruit and vegetables – acquired legally or otherwise – feature heavily). This clip from an interview with Rosemary Pitts of Great Waltham gives an example of what children ate in the 1920s-1930s (SA 55/4/1).You can run an Advanced Search to better refine the results that you get. Click ‘Advanced Search’ at the top of the page. To search for a specific phrase, type this in the second box – and don’t forget to add ‘sa’ or ‘va’ to the top box. For example, try typing ‘sa’ in the top box and ‘First World War’ in the second box.If you are searching for multiple words that might not appear as an exact phrase in the catalogue description, type your words into the top box. For example, if you are looking for information about Clacton Pier, this might be described as ‘Clacton-on-Sea Pier’, ‘Clacton Pier’, or ‘the Pier at Clacton’. To find all of these matches, type ‘Clacton’ and ‘pier’ in the top box – and add ‘sa’ or ‘va’ to the second box.Tip: To search for sound and video recordings at the same time, type ‘sa’ and ‘va’ in the third box before clicking ‘SEARCH’.You can also use our index search boxes from the ‘Advanced Search’ screen. Choose ‘People’, ‘Places’, or ‘Subjects’ from the ‘Refine your search’ box, and then type in the key words or names that interest you. This will only find results where your search term is a major part of the recording, and not just mentioned in passing. You will not be able to limit this search to just sound or video recordings, but if you sort the results by Reference, you can find the Reference Numbers that begin ‘SA’ or ‘VA’.There are other finding aids that might help you locate relevant material. We have subject guides to sound and video recordings that cover: agriculture, Christmas, education, Essex dialect and accents, folk song and music, health, housing, shops and shopping, traditional English dance, transport, the First World War, and the Second World War. These are available in the Playback Room at the Essex Record Office, or from our website.You can also read general user guides to Essex Archives Online on the catalogue: click ‘USER GUIDES’ at the top of the page.Now that you can find material in the Archive, please come and listen! That is what it is here for. And do get in touch if you’re having trouble finding recordings. We would be happy to help.But first here’s a little test for you to try. The result will be worth it, we promise.Click ‘Advanced Search’ from the top of the page.Make sure the ‘Refine your search’ box is set to ‘Everything’.In the top box, type ‘cucumber’ and ‘halstead’.In the second box, type ‘SA’.Click on the result.Enjoy.I am probably known to many as the editor of the Victoria County History of Essex, a project researching and publishing historical accounts of communities in Essex to a standard format as a work of reference. I am also currently Chairman of the Friends of Historic Essex, the charity that supports the ERO, and a Vice-President (and former officer) of the Essex Society for Archaeology and History. My personal research interests lie in medieval economic and social history, and also landscape history and buildings. I live with my wife Lynn in the centre of Maldon and we have a daughter, Ruth, who is currently studying French and German at the University of Bristol.My ‘official’ office is a room in the centre of the house (theformer dining room), but it is currently so overrun with stacked books andpaperwork I can’t work in there! I have also taken over the dining table in thebay window in the lounge, which is currently occupied with the notes and booksfor VCH work on Harwich. My current working space is therefore another diningtable in the garden room at the back of the house.Do you have a view out of a window when you are working?What is it and is it a distraction?The view out of the garden room is, unsurprisingly, of therear garden. It is only a small space, but south facing, green and peaceful,backing onto Maldon’s Quaker meeting house grounds. It won’t surprise anyonewho knows me to learn that I have lost both the keys to the patio doors – so wehave to exit out of the side kitchen door!The garden attracts lots of birds which I enjoy watching,and they will probably like it even more as I have plans to dig up the lawn andplant potatoes. Planning my own personal dig for victory can certainly be (enjoyably)distracting.What Essex research are you catching up on? Will thisresult in something published?I have occasional work to do seeing VCH Essex XII (part I)through the publication process, and preparing XII (part II) to start on the processlater this year. I am also completing some research on Tudor sources on Harwichfor VCH Essex XIII, including court rolls (ERO), the Harwich Town Book (churchwardens’accounts) (Harwich Town Council archive) and Prerogative Court of Canterburywills for Harwich (TNA). I have digital photographs of all or part of thesesources.I also have the final amendments to make to an edited volumeDr Thomas Plume, 1630-1704. His Life and Legacies (University ofHertfordshire Press, forthcoming 2020).And, finally, an introductory article on Colchester’shistory to accompany a new volume funded by Colchester Borough Council whichbrings together all of Dave Stenning’s fabulous reports on Colchesterbuildings. Do you set yourself a strict timetable to work to or justpick up your research as and when?I was always a night owl, but of recent years increasinglyfind I can’t work past mid-evening as my brain turns to jelly. With researchand note-taking I find I can work solidly to a timetable. With writing I find Ihave to be in the mood and then the keyboard takes a hammering untilinspiration runs out.It has to be tea. At the moment a large pot one partEnglish breakfast to one part Earl Grey. Snack intake is reduced due to my type2 diabetes, but if allowed by the cake-police (Lynn) then any sort of bun orbiscuit will do (I’m not that fussy), although admittedly partial to ahome-made scone. I play a few on-line games with old school friends, severalof them now living in the US. It’s proved a good way of staying in contact aswe berate each other about tactical ineptitude or muddled strategy.Some cheery conversation with the archivists and searchroom staff,and meeting up with other researchers and asking for and sharing advice andfinding out about other interesting research in progress. I think this is nowcalled networking.

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