Further questions for an oral history interview

Moving on from school days:

1. Was there anything at school that inspired you to become a historian?
2. When you left school did you go straight into higher education or did you follow another path?
3. If you went into HE how did you choose your university?
4. Were they happy times?
5. Was there periods when you struggled or doubted what you wanted to do?
6. Did you do any part time work or an internship?
7. If you followed another career path, what did you do?
8. What made you decide to change your career path?
9. Why did you want to do your Masters in this particular field of public history?
10. Do you have any plans for a career or PhD after your Masters?

“Starter” questions for an oral history interview

I thought I would post some ideas to get us started for next week’s seminar on interview questions.

A: Basic Information – perhaps say “I’d like to ask you some questions about your childhood”

1. Can you tell me your name and address – (for the sound-check)?
2. What is your date of birth?
3. Where were you born?
4. Do you have any brothers and sisters? (Probe: birth order and spacing)
5. What was your father’s job?
6. Do you remember your father ever being out of work? (Probe: if yes, how did you manage then? How did that affect your lives?)
7. Did your mother work?
8. What did your parents do in their spare time?
9. Did you go out together as a family?
10. Did you go on holidays?
11. Where did you go to school?
12. What did you enjoy most about school?
13. What did you dislike about school?

I might then go onto ask more detailed questions under the theme  B: School and Work  to include; hopes on leaving school, part-time work whilst at school , jobs, hours worked etc….

Looking forward to reading other ideas for opening questions.

Concerns and Hopes in interviewing Peter Pearson

Dear reader,

this Thursday will be a big day to me, as it I will be conducting my first interview.
I will be interviewing Peter Pearson, who retired at the age of 54, finishing a great career within the army which took him to all parts of the world. At the moment he has a few honorary jobs, for instance as Lieutenant of the Tower of London. As he had a short, but very intense career, I hope to learn a lot about him, and his visions on a range of topics.

To start, I hope to hear how the life within the army is and as he was in Bosnia and Albania in the height of the battle in the end of the nineties, I hope to hear his visions of life on a mission. How this differs from the papers, but also how this affected his personal life. Firsthand interviews of the army nowadays could complement knowledge of the army that already exists. Furthermore, it could give a insight into a fairly closed off institution and hence giving insight into another community in society.

During the interview, I hope that I will be able to listen carefully and follow Peter’s pacing. If I am flexible to his answers, set challenging questions and probe where needed, I hope to be able to create a narrative interview and not a dialogue – which I am used to in daily life.

Furthermore, silence is important to generate time to think and draw out a further comment. I am concerned I can not maintain my silence. If I interrupt Peter, or frequently repeat what he just said, I will probably lose his trust hence not being able to get the truth I would have otherwise obtained.

In general, I hope to pick up on important topics indicated by Peter himself and grab opportunities given to deepen major themes. This will hopefully prevent the interview from wandering off into irrelevant topics or moments where I put out leading questions by accident. I hope this will get me behind stereotyped generalizations and into detailed memories.

Well, even considering my hopes and concerns, I look forward to this interview.

Interview Topic, Stephanie de Rooij

I am planning on interviewing Peter Pearson, Lieutenant-General who’s service took him to all parts of the world, including the Far East, the Middle East and Africa. He commanded units all the way up from a platoon of 30 men to a command of over 3,500. In 2010, after his retirement , he became the 145th Lieutenant of The Tower of London. Last year he was appointed Governor of the military knights of Windsor.

His short, but intense period in the army brought him to many places. Hiërarchie-wise, geographically and mentally. To me, he is like a living example of a dream career in the army; receiving quite a few honours and now residing on Windsor Castle.

I would like to ask him two things, firstly, I would like to hear how life on the contemporary front is. He was stationed in Hong Kong before and after it was given to China. He served during the upheavals in Bosnia and Yugoslavia, he has been an intelligence officer in Brunei, so I wonder what has changed in warfare in the last 30 years.
         What were the world influences, the end of the Cold War, the different areas where he served on warfare? 

Secondly, I want to dig into contemporary history. I think he has enough to say about life, about war from an army perspective. He is not an average citizen, neither a leader who’s voice will be heard in decades of time. I think he will tell the story of his community, of the life in the army; abroad with the army. It gives me the opportunity to hear about another generation and make contact with another part of society. And not only for me; by interviewing him I will give a window for others to see as well. Therefore, I would like to deepen his time in Bosnie, to give that part of history a social component. We all know what happened, but how was it being there, while it happened.

Interview Topic

Having previously studied many wars, including the soldiers experience fighting in war and society during the war, I would like to explore a side of war not often spoken of. I would like to learn more about the medical treatment English soldiers received post-war for mental illnesses, such as PTSD. Ideally I would love to find out about soldiers post World War Two, but because that does not seem realistic, I would be interested to learn about mental illness in soldiers after any war. To do this, I would like to speak with a current or retired mental health professional. I think speaking with a mental health professional will give me insight into what it is or was like to treat patients, former soldiers, on a personal level that cannot be found in text. The beauty of oral history is that the stories you hear from the people being interviewed not only give you their account of an event, but also the way the event made them feel. I think it is important not only to find out what type of medical treatment these former soldiers were given, but also how difficult it might have been for the mental health professional to administer these treatments, or just to see these war heroes suffer.

Interview Topic-Chelsey Cain

My original plan for this project was to interview a former member of the Women’s Voluntary Service.  I am very interested in gender and lived experiences of war, particularly how women define their femininity during times of conflict.  On a recent trip to the Imperial War Museum, I made note of some duties of the WVS and felt that I wanted to explore the more personal side of WWII service on the home front.  I was very interested in how this wartime service would have impacted the women’s image of themselves as female, their sexuality, their wartime and post-war relationships, and future goals, both personal and professional.  I feel that this type of interview would add another dimension to the study of women’s wartime work, one that looks at the intersections of gender, sex, labor, and war and would likely reveal a great deal about the construction of gender and femininity from 1945 onward.  I am worried, though, about finding a participant, given the age of these women and accessibility for a lengthy interview.

If my first topic choice is unavailable for whatever reason, I would also very much like to interview a former female staff member of Royal Holloway.  I feel this would still have relevance to my research interest of women, work, and femininity.  If this is the topic I pursue, I could perhaps look at constructions of gender in the more recent years since the end of WWII.

Through a life history interview of a participant from either group, I am confident that I could examine the development of gender identity and the impact of labor (either academic or through volunteer service) on the construction of femininity and sexuality in these women’s lives.