If you go down to Coney Street today, you’ll be able to listen to voices from York’s past.
Today marks the York Oral History Society’s 40th birthday. And to celebrate, they have a new exhibition dedicated to their work in the StreetLife Hub at 29 Coney Street.
The exhibition will include presentations and banner displays of old photos. But it will also give you the chance to hear for yourself some voices from the city’s past.
Since it was set up 40 years ago, the society has interviewed and recorded something like 1,000 York people. And listening booths have been set up in the hub where you will be able to listen to some of them talking about their lives.
They’re not famous people - not even necessarily rich or particularly successful. They’re just ordinary York people from times past, talking about what their lives were like.
Many were interviewed decades ago. And since they were mostly already old when interviewed, the York they talk about is the York of the early 1900s, or the the First and Second World Wars.
They remember their schooldays, life in domestic service, and working at Rowntree’s or Terry’s. More recently, interviewees were recorded talking abort their memorise of the York music scene in the Thirties, Forties, Fifties and Sixties.
As well as the recordings, York Oral History Society has been collecting photographs for the last 40 years. It has quite a treasure trove of them - including those on our gallery today.
Between them, they give an idea of the kind of people oral history society volunteers have recorded over the years. They include Mrs Elsie fowler, nee Wright, who remembers being at Scarcroft School in 1908; Moyra Johnson, an early woman glider in the 1930s whose husband ran the Picture House on Coney street; a Co-op delivery boy; and children attending a street party, probably for the coronation of King George VI in May 1937.
“This is the social history of York,” said Van Wilson, who has been a member of the Society for every one of its 40 years. “It is ordinary people, talking about their domestic lives, their work, their schooldays.”
Venture down to Coney Street from today, and you’ll be able to hear some of them for yourself.
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