Listening Between the Lines: The Emotional Gap
This is the second in a series of posts by Richard Bliss, Artist in Residence at Tyne & Wear Archives, October 2024.
Richard Bliss is an artist and tailor. He is currently artist in residence at Tyne and Wear Archives, as part of the ‘Unlocking Our Sound Heritage’ project.
‘Unlocking Our Sound Heritage’ is a UK-wide project which aims to preserve, digitise and provide public access to a large part of the nation’s sound heritage. The project is part of the National Lottery Heritage funded ‘Save Our Sounds’ programme led by the British Library.
This summer I saw Inside Out 2. Why would a 62 year old man go with his 57 year old partner to a children’s film? I will just say — Isle of Bute and nightlife. Anyone who knows the Scottish Island will understand why. As I watched the film, I unexpectedly I found myself thinking about the men I had been listening to in the sound archive. In the film emotions are embodied, coloured, gendered. Anger is square, red and masculine; Sadness round, blue and feminine; Ennui is drooping, grey and non-binary. But why is Anger masculine, Joy feminine, and Ennui non-binary? How had these conventions come to be accepted?
As I had listened to the sound recordings of men from the past, I had found them full of emotion. Anger, sadness even boredom; it is all in the sound recordings.
And yet…
Archive description conventions discourage the archivists from describing this in their summaries of the recording.
Here are just two examples.
Barry Nelson was recorded in 1992. The information in the catalogue tells us that Barry Nelson talks about his childhood in Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne, in the late 1960s and 1970s: childhood friendship groups and pastimes, school education, closeness and insularity of local community, shops, experience of urban regeneration, moving from terraced housing into new housing, loss of community, resentment of change, visits from architects, incoming population from Walker and Heaton, friction between gangs of teens from Walker and Byker.
But when I listen to the recording my description would be: Little Barry Nelson was filled with worry when his family was split up. Their street was being demolished to make way for the Byker wall, and Barry’s beloved Granny Nelson was to move to a totally different part of Byker. The grown-up Barry’s voice is filled with anxiety as he recalls leaving his friends and grandparents. This is not just resentment of change; this is fear, anger, anxiety, sadness and eventually acceptance.
George Gray was recorded in 1982. The information in the catalogue tells us: George Gray Born 1886. Recording Location: unknown. Recording Duration: 5 hr. 31 min. The structure of the reminiscences is largely chronological, recorded over a period of approximately two months, although not all segments are dated. From internal evidence, the reminiscences were recorded at the behest of Gray’s family, particularly ‘Our Tom’, George Gray’s son. There is evidence of self-editing through breaks and over-recording, for example at the end of UTWAM0010/1 S1 when an additional remark is recorded over a longer piece of speech.
My description would be: George Gray was born in 1886. George lived an incredible life mostly in and around South Shields. He joined the army in 1914, lying about his age in order to sign up and fight in the First World War. An 18 year old boy when he joined, by the age of 19 he was leading a group of soldiers. Aged 86, George vividly recalls the horror of being bombed and finding his friend dead from a shrapnel wound to the chest. The bombing causes George to experience post traumatic stress disorder, that he calls shell shock. He constantly relived his terror, as he shook and shook and repeatedly told himself to ‘Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together.’ Eventually he recalls his hysterical laughter when he receives a letter from his Auntie Isobel at Windy Nook, saying she is relieved to hear he is out of the shells. The listener can hear the power of his emotions 67 years after the event.
We are often told that traditionally men don’t express their feelings. The recordings from the past tell us something very different. Both Barry and George fill their recollections with emotion. Their voices modulate, their speech falters. They are not men who are trying to maintain some mythical stiff upper lip.
The archivist and the artist are both battling with their reaction to the emotions in the collection. One is fighting to keep their emotions out of their work, the other is fighting to put their emotions in.
It is this emotional gap that intrigues me.
