Volunteers Week (1-12 June) is the perfect opportunity to highlight the wonderful work carried out by a team of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers at Dorset History Centre.
Volunteers carry out a wide range of tasks to enhance the work of the archives. These include repackaging, listing and cleaning documents; exploring stories held in the collections; conducting and transcribing oral history interviews; and helping to organise and run events. Wendy describes her experience of transcribing oral history interviews:
“Having taken early retirement from the Civil Service, I do some voluntary work and in November started as a volunteer with the Dorset History Centre. There are many exciting projects to choose from here, but as I am a reasonably good typist it was suggested I might like to type up some hand written transcripts of oral histories that were recorded around the year 2000. So, usually one afternoon each week, I visit the History Centre to type out interviews that people in Dorset have given, telling of their lives.
These give an interesting snapshot of life during the last century and I can picture their memories in my mind, rather like reading a book. Several interviews involve people who live(d) in Bradford Peverell, including Roy Slade whose wife Gladys had recently died. Although we do not have Gladys’s oral history, we have a recording of the many tributes that were paid to her by people in the community. It seems she was a much loved individual.
Another recording is of a lady living in Upwey. She lived a quiet country life and was not one for parties or dances. One day by chance she met a young naval rating who asked her out. They met up for their first date in Weymouth. He invited her to the pub, but clearly she regarded a pub as the height of decadence and so she declined, instead inviting him to come home to meet her parents. I am not sure this would be every man’s ideal first date, but he accepted the invitation and it must have worked out well as they got married.”
We are very grateful for the time and energy volunteers devote to assisting us in our work. If you are interesting in volunteering with us, please take a look at our current vacancies.