story archive

We archive all the life story material we generate in making our programmes. Over fifteen years we have completed several hundred life story interviews, adding up to more than 3,000 hours of filmed material. This material is of great national significance as it provides a document of experiences and of a way of life that is now beyond almost living memory. We have stories of boy soldiers in World War 1, soldiers who fought at the Somme and the nurses who tended them.

We have memories of childhood from an era when boys and girls left school at the age of thirteen. We have stories from the coal mines, the railways, the fishing industry and the farms dating back to the first decades of the twentieth century. Some of this material is held by the Life Stories Collection at the British Library, information about which is available on-line. Some is held by the BFI National Film and Television Archive in London. Most is archived however at Testimony Films. We are beginning to assemble this archive into an online digital resource, which will be expanded over time to become a major research source.
Testimony Films