Professor Michael Wilson: Oral histories (Tale-Enders and Taking the Field)

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In this episode we speak to Professor Mike Wilson of Loughborough University about his work in the area of oral history and the two cricketing projects with which he was associated, Tale-Enders and Taking the field.  Mike is currently Professor of Drama and Head of Creative Arts at Loughborough.

Tale-Enders was a project he was involved with alongside Andrew Hignell of the Museum of Welsh Cricket and coincided with plans for the new stadium at Sophia Gardens in the run up to the Ashes series of 2009.  At that time, Mike was  Head of Research at the Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries, University of Glamorgan which is now the University of South Wales in Pontypridd.  Mike describes the origins of the project, his memories of working on it and some of the stories about welsh cricket clubs it uncovered.

Taking the Field was a project inspired by the Tale Enders Project and was organised under the auspices of the MCC.  It expanded on the concepts explored by Tale Enders and, as it happened, assisted members of Blaina Cricket Club tell the story of their club.

In addition to talking about these projects, Mike tells us about his academic journey, his discovery of oral history and one or two of the key figures that have informed his development as someone interested in the power of stories for exploring history.

For those interested in Tale Enders, you can find the Flickr page which was used by the project by clicking on the link below.  Be prepared to see some famous English cricketers as well as members of the Glamorgan CCC Team from days gone by.  In addition, there are many photos taken of club grounds and club and country cricket in Wales from the early 20th century.  Unfortunately, the photos are not labelled but the experience of looking at them is no less enjoyable for that:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tale-enders/

For those interested in the Taking the Field project there will be a follow up episode of the podcast featuring original audio recordings from the project with members of Blaina Cricket Club as well as an interview with Project Worker Emma Peplow and member of Blaina CC, Alan Williams.