Archive recordings of Perthshire people and local history will be made available to the public after being hidden for decades.
The Culture Perth & Kinross project, titled In Our Own Words, will shed more light on what life was like in Perthshire over the 20th Century.
Included are Perth Burns Club supper recitals, reminiscences from Perth Theatre staff, actors and audiences spanning 70 years of Scotland’s oldest theatre, and a variety of other recordings relating to local people, organisations and events.
The project will enable an online catalogue of the collection to be produced, and will be available to audiences not only in Perth and Kinross, but also across the world.
Project archivist Hannah Mackay is leading the project and is currently cataloguing and unlocking the archived tapes.
How is the project being received?
Ms Mackay said: “I am really looking forward to working with the collection and discovering more about the stories and people within it.
“It is exciting to be delivering the project during Scotland’s Year of Stories and the opportunities this brings to share the collection with people of all ages.”
Chief executive of Culture Perth and Kinross, Helen Smout, added: “Culture Perth and Kinross is delighted to have been awarded a grant to catalogue our Sound Collection.
“The collection contains the stories of local people as told in their own words and, once catalogued, will add a new dimension to related material in our archive and museum collections, enriching understanding of our local heritage and the ways that people can engage with it.
“The subject matter will be of interest to a wide range of researchers, and the creation of schools and reminiscence materials will support learning and inter-generational activities that will bring people and communities together.”
The Perth and Kinross Sound Collection, which is an archive of audio recordings and photographs relating to rural and cultural heritage, captures the memories and stories of the residents of Perth and Kinross.
What will be included in the project?
Included in the collections are recordings that capture changing traditions local in farming, fishing, forestry, building, home life and recreation throughout the 20th Century.
The recordings capture the local history of Perthshire, as well as capturing languages that were once commonly used in Perthshire, such as Gaelic and Scots.
It has been made possible by a £39,895 grant that was awarded by the National Archives and Archives Revealed.
The project also received additional funding of £2,000 from the Friends of Perth & Kinross Archive.
It is hoped that the collection will available later this year.
