Confluence

Oral Histories

We may feel that our memories are not important to others, but we have no way of anticipating what will be of concern to us in the future. Confluence has tried where possible to make recordings of memories and anecdotes. Sometimes these have been incorporated into musical works, such as Downstream - that's another story by Karen Wimhurst, written after research with oral historian Helen Weinstein. The resulting 'sound poem' includes visits to an East Stour toddler dancing in the air with a big stick, an energetic case of 'free-lancing' the riverbank at Marnhull, a rhythmic discussion of the 2 tap system for spring and river water at Fifehead Magdalen, a splash of Baptism at Buckhorn Weston, before a deluge of water at Stour Provost, and a surprising case of being seasick during floods at Factory Farm.

Peter Custard of Fifehead Magdalen (left, with his wife and grand-children) has a particular interest in the water supply of the village and his enthusiasm has kept alive knowledge of a unique system from which we could learn today.

He told us how, before mains water came, the landowner had initiated a scheme to provide water to the village. Water from the river and spring water were separately gathered and pumped up to reservoirs, disguised in a building which still exists, and then in two parallel pipes which fed taps in the village and some houses. Two taps ­ one spring water, pure and fresh, one river water soft for washing. Remnants of this system turn up in field and garden.

Through our mains today, water purified to a standard for drinking is piped to the bath, used for the garden and washing clothes ­ a profligate waste. The use of different qualities of water for different purposes as in the past at Fifehead Magdalen, suggests possibilities for a more careful future.

There are other ways in which memories can help. In Devon, in 1996, quarrying company Watts Blake Bearne wanted to divert the Bovey and Teign rivers so that it could take more ball clay. The parish council and activists struggled for a year and won a public inquiry. Then village elders changed the course of history. One 76 year old woman recalled events over 53 years ­ she knew more about the river's capacity to flood than the quarrying company, their projections invalidated they withdrew the scheme.

Without memories which attach people to places, we learn the hard way. Ordinary history, everyday nature and local knowledge are important ­ so often 'progress' takes a step backwards because the deep understanding and attachments which people have for the detail of their own localities have neither been sought nor valued by those taking the decisions.

We worked with oral historian Helen Weinstein who has a deep interest in the history of English ballads and oral culture, particularly in early printed ballads of 16th and 17th centuries. She spent four years as a research fellow at Magdalene College Cambridge University, researching and writing about the biggest surviving collection of early ballads.

She says: "Working as an oral historian you become fascinated by the choice of words, the tones, and the gripping content of everyday life. And it is in editing sound as a BBC Producer that has enabled me to return to the ballad form, & through an intensive editing process to "sculpture in sound". This is where Karen and I had first started a fruitful collaboration, making two sound poems for BBC Radio 4 in 1998 and 1999.

Recording in the Stour Villages, we have collected stories and opinions about water and the River Stour. Once the stories are recorded, the process of composition entails building themes and poems, and "sculpting" the sound using a difficult but amazing computer, where all the sound waves can be seen as pictures on the screen. Working together, with Helen editing and moving and polishing the sound to make the speech-based parts of the piece, and Karen writing a composition for instruments which weaves around and between the speech. It is a very intensive, creative, but unusual way of working with oral histories where tones in speech and the patterns of telling stories are matched with instruments, and sounds recorded along the Stour River."

Many of the recordings made by Confluence are to be donated to the Dorset Records Office. Sue Clifford and Angela King of Common Ground had been in touch with the Dorset Oral History Association over the months leading to their launch, exciting people with the work already achieved within Confluence and asking for help and collaboration.

Both to bring local memories and expertise to wider audiences, and to support the Open The Flood-Gates concert, an open session was held in the Red Rose Cafe, Sturminster Newton in which people were encouraged to bring along photographs of the river in winter, and to share their memories with Angela King and Sue Clifford. The photographs gathered were used as part of a projected display at the Flood-Gates concert, and they will feed into other activities and publications documenting memories and personal histories of the river.