Listening Between the Lines: Uncovering the Hidden in Oral Histories

This is the first 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.

Today I am listening to Harry Dawson. Harry tells me how at the age of 8 years old he was ‘thrust’ into an orphanage. Harry’s voice gives no clues to his emotions. There is no catch in his throat as he tells me that his mother died giving birth and that his father was killed in the first world war; no tightening of the vocal chords, that might reveal bitterness at being turned out from the orphanage at age 16, with only a suit and a copy of the bible; no sing song of pity for his boyhood self, alone in the world. I ask myself; is Harry disguising his voice to hide anger at teachers who kept him and the other 83 boys under strict control night and day? Why does Harry not cry as he tells me that as a boy he owned nothing, had only a few shared toys and had to stoke boilers from the age of 12?

Can I hear Harry without the filter of my emotions, my opinions, my prejudices?

Harry tells me he was asked to write about orphanage life for the BBC. At first listening, these are simply humorous little stories about singing in church under the watchful eye of priests and bishops, a tennis session interrupted by a pair of white doves, a boy getting the stub of a pencil stuck in his ear. But woven into these stories are — perhaps subconscious — illustrations of another side of orphanage life. A little boy being frightened he will land in hell for simply singing with vibrato in his voice. That same boy being punished and humiliated for simply being left handed, and receiving half a crown at Christmas from a generous benefactor, but then having to resign that half crown to the headmaster, who would deduct the cost of a pencil, a bootlace or a garter, leaving little or nothing by the end of term, to buy even ‘..one foot of Sticky Spanish.’

The recording concludes with an urgent codicil in which Harry’s voice, for the first time, perhaps shows traces of something like defensiveness?

‘I’d like, before I finish, to put in a little note which was sent to the BBC about the orphanage, in case there’s some misgivings about it being a cruel place and people get peculiar ideas. But never mind, this is what I wrote to the BBC…’

‘Many facts can be told that cannot be put into stories, for instance, how did you arrive in an orphanage? These were not children found destitute and picked up from the streets, these went to poor law institutions like the work house. These boys and girls came from middle class working people, they came from places as far as Hexham, Sunderland, Durham and the whole of the North East. If tragedy hit your family and your guardians knew certain people like masonic brethren or some influential people who were on the board of governors of the orphanage, they’d pass their vote to you. If you were lucky you got in. In my case my elder brother got in free, but as we were not to be separated they took me also, taking a small amount from what little money my father had left. After this you were the legal property of the orphanage.

Unfortunately this was all done when the children were young and did not understand. Many had to leave the orphanage at 16 with no family background and no financial support. But I must say this in defence of the orphanage. I received a very strict upbringing, educated above the normal given in council schools, was fed and clothed by people who were charitable and public spirited. This of their time never to be able to repay. And I was a happy child among many friends, who like myself, had to fight to survive. We were made to be responsible for all our actions, perhaps too early in life, but we all did well later on.’

I listen to Harry for a third, fourth, fifth time. Each listening reveals more of the man from the stories of the boy.