WAYS OF SHARING STORIES

So last Wednesday, we had an introductory look at how we might get people talking and sharing their stories about WW1. What can we do to help people to remember all the family tales they thought they'd forgotten?

We decided that it can work equally well to talk to people individually, or to talk to them in a group - it depends on the group. But either way, when it comes to the types of questions we ask people:

• Ask what you want to know about! (It's all too easy to ask questions that don't really get to the heart of what you're interested in.)
• Don't just ask for facts. (In this project we want the opinions and the emotions that go with the facts; so we should ask people what they think and what they feel, not just what they know. ) 
• Ask for personal, "non-contradictable" stuff. (If I ask you when World War 1 took place, you might feel nervous of giving the wrong answer. But if I ask you what your great-grandma, who was a nurse in the war, was like - it's your opinion, you can't get the answer "wrong", which might make you feel more confident to tell me about her.)

We talked about how we'd handle it if we're talking to a group and just getting a lot of "dunno" replies, or shyness and awkwardness. Strategies we thought might help were:

• Invite people to write things down (some people are shy at speaking, and feel more comfortable writing; especially if they can write something anonymously at first, e.g. on a Post-It note on the wall or in a comments box)
• Invite people to work in pairs (some people find this easier than speaking in a group - and when the pairs get chatting, they often jog each other's memories)
• Tell them about you (sometimes if you start off by giving a story about your own family or community's involvement in WW1, it'll give people ideas)
• Use objects! (photos and other objects are brilliant ways to get people talking)

We went back to that idea at the beginning, about "asking what you really want to know". What do we want to know from the people we're going to talk to? Here's what we came up with:
How they heard the family stories they'll be telling us - their relationship with the story, and with the person in their family who lived through WW1.

• The cultural impact of the war, especially on those who went to fight abroad, or those who were displaced or had to move because of the effects of the war.
• How the different countries came to get involved in the war in the first place, especially the non-European countries.
• How different cultures memorialise and remember WW1, and how suignificant it is to them.
• The way that the war brought rich and poor together, and the effects this had.
• The similarities and differences between different communities in their wartime experiences.

Next, looked at a useful framework to keep in mind when asking people about an object. You might not ask these questions in so many words, and you might not ask all of these things - but it's a handy way to think about the sorts of things you might cover.

• MADE (What's it made of? How, when, where and by whom was it made? This applies to photos too - when, where and why was this picture taken?)
• USED (Who used it, when, where, why, and to do what?  Did the person who used it normally own it - and if not, who did own it?)
• VALUE (Was it expensive/rare? Did everyone have one, or only a particular kind of person? How did you get one - could you buy it, or did you get it some other way?)
• PERSONAL (Especially if it's an object belonging to the interviewee, ask them how they came by it, what it means to them, why they have kept it, what memories it conjures up.)
• HOW DO YOU KNOW? (It's always good to ask people how they know the things they know about the object. This tells us what visual "clues" they are using to assess it. It also gets them talking about how the information was passed down to them, which often leads to stories about the person who told them, etc.)

Finally, we talked about the idea of hearsay - see the post above for a bit more on that!