Projects

Life story interviews with farmers, farm workers, land owners and managers, scientists, advisers and policy makers.

Published date:

14 December 2021

Supported by the Arcadia Fund, this National Life Stories project documents changes in agriculture and the management of the countryside in Britain since 1945. Fifty extended oral history interviews capture applications of scientific knowledge and changing moral debates over the use of land. The recordings reveal the often hidden lives of farm workers and gamekeepers, impacts of national and EU policy, and the experience of gender, racial and sexual difference in agriculture.

Articles and blogs drawing on the recordings include:

• ‘Climate change: why farmers are among our best guides for making sense of topsy-turvy weather’, The Conversation, July 2020
• ‘Incidental birds in farmers’ life stories’, Winged Geographies, University of Cambridge, November 2020
• ‘The Grassland Revolution’, Rural History Today, British Agricultural History Society, Issue 39, July 2020
• ‘Following the Science’, Rural History Today, British Agricultural History Society, Issue 41, August 2021

Further information about An Oral History of Farming, Land Management and Conservation in Postwar Britain can be found within the National Life Stories Annual Reviews, in particular the 2018/2019 NLS Annual Review, 2019/2020 NLS Annual Review, and the 2020/2021 NLS Annual Review.

Access and related recordings

Selected clips from the recordings can be listened to on the British Library’s SoundCloud.

To explore the collection in detail, please search the Sound and Moving Image catalogue. The catalogue reference used for all the recordings in the project is C1828. In 2022 the full recordings will be accessible online on the British Library Sounds website.

Interviews recorded for An Oral History of Farming, Land Management and Conservation in Postwar Britain complement recordings made for other National Life Stories projects, especially:

• An Oral History of British Science (for example, soil scientist David Jenkinson and ecologists John Lawton and Colin Tudge)
• Food: From Source to Salespoint (including food policy expert Tim Lang)
• An Oral History of British Horticulture (including Miriam Rothschild)
• Food Activist Interviews (including Patrick Holden and Francis Blake)

Other related British Library oral history material includes the George Ewart Evans collection.

Partners and sponsors

National Life Stories gratefully acknowledges the support of Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.

Advisory Committee for An Oral History of Farming, Land Management and Conservation in Postwar Britain

• Professor Jon Agar (chair)
• Professor Maggie Gill
• Lord Haskins
• Professor John Martin
• Andrew Thorman
• Professor Michael Winter

Senior Academic Advisor

Dr Sally Horrocks

Oral Historian and Project Researcher

Dr Paul Merchant

Contact us

If you have any queries about the project please contact us at: 

National Life Stories
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
United Kingdom

Email: oralhistory@bl.uk

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7412 7404