A collection of interviews with historical re-enactors from 1996–7 provides behind-the-scenes insight into a popular hobby that continues to challenge our meaning of public history.
13 July 2026Blog series Sound and vision
Author Molly May Sherborne, Public History intern with the British Library’s Oral History department
Between 1996–7, Rachel Hasted recorded a series of oral history interviews for her MA dissertation, ‘Just Dressing Up?’ Historical Re-enactment and the Subjective Experience of the Past. Over the course of a year, she spoke to participants involved with various re-enactment organisations from across the country, from the iconic Sealed Knot and their breakaway branch, English Civil War Society, to living history locations at Kentwell Hall and Little Woodham village in Gosport.
From those initial 16 interviews across an age range of 23–61 (Hasted, 3) twelve have been archived and digitised at the British Library and are now available in the Sound and Moving Image (SAMI) Catalogue. They give a unique insight into a hobby that stood on the fringes of the heritage industry and help us ‘to try to understand the motivations for taking part in re-enactments and what meaning about the past are created or reinforced for individual re-enactors through their activities’ (Hasted, 4).
Musketeers and Pikemen of the Sealed Knot march to battle at a re-enactment of the Siege of Basing House, an event in the English Civil War. Photo: Anguskirk/Flickr CC BY-NC-ND
Historical re-enactment emerged in the 1970s as a leisure activity, and by the time Hasted was conducting her dissertation, there were approximately 15,000 people in a wide variety of volunteer groups. As of today, that number has grown to over 18,000. While there are community guidance notes on the NARes website, these are not legally enforced, no doubt resulting in contradictory interpretations across groups.
Interviews were conducted in person, and although not explicitly verified, from the audio they generally sound as if they took place in people’s homes. The line of questioning was focused on revealing the individual’s involvement with re-enactment, including how they were introduced to the activity, the roles played, main activities of the group, research and education, the costumes worn and artefacts used. Activities were divided between either battle re-enactments or a recreation of everyday life with a focus on manual labour, domesticity and reproduction.
Hasted’s interview style and approach encouraged an exploration of re-enactment at the level of individual experience. While a range of pre-prepared questions ensured a comparative structure, Hasted did deviate if the subject began to stray into a more interesting topic of discussion. Hasted transcribed each recording and I have now written content summaries that can be found in the SAMI catalogue.
Across all 12 interviews, re-enactors reflected on their experience with institutional history in school, with an overwhelming majority showing little interest and remarking that the subject was ‘all names and dates’. To them, historical re-enactment provided a more accessible way of engaging with the past, which resulted in many groups becoming heavily involved in delivering educational and promotional performances in line with the National Curriculum.
However, since its inception, historical re-enactment has been a polarising activity, met with amusement from friends and family but often with open contempt from traditional historians. Joy Shillaker, who was studying for a History M.A. at the time she was interviewed, reflected on the opinions of her tutors and offered her own insight on the importance of broadening history as a discipline.
Elizabeth (Joy) Shillaker interviewed by Rachel Hasted, excerpt from ‘Interviews with Historical Re-Enactors’, catalogue reference: C1997/10. © Rachel Hasted.
Do they have any interest at all in why this is so popular? I mean after all history can use all the friends it can get.
Yes yeah some of them. I wonder if- what comes across is that they somehow feel threatened, and you say history needs all the friends that it can get and I think that there are a lot of people who actually feel, a lot of academics and historians, that- you know this not wanting to share their knowledge, keeping it to themselves, the professionalisation of it as a subject almost. I think, I’ve come across hints of that, that you don’t really want too many people being in, you know in on the know which I think is quite sad. And this keeping history- the broadening of history as a discipline and the acceptance, the - I'm trying to do an oral history project and it's to do with the malleability of memory and I’ve realised doing it that I knew very little about memory, how memory works, so I've had to get a couple of psychology books out and I’ve realised actually if you're going to be arguing about oral history and uses of memory you've got to be a bit of a psychologist or be prepared to work with a psychologist. And so history's broadening out as a discipline, joining over with social science, with- you're getting historical social geographers now and I actually think that's a very good thing, it’s- and I think perhaps some of the old-school academic historians maybe are threatened by that, that they see it with a discipline weakening.
Hasted admitted her own response to re-enactment included disapproval and embarrassment, but also interest and amusement, along with jealousy at this bold appropriation of the past as an arena for play, ‘phantasy’ and identity creation (Hasted, 8).
Young Tudor period reenactors in the Great Hall of Kentwell Hall, Suffolk, England. Photo: Robroyaus/Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA
Yet it’s clear that formal research was, and most likely still is, an important aspect of authenticity within re-enactment, particularly for the development of the role-play characters. Nearly all participants engaged in developing their own skills and knowledge in their own time, using available research institutions such as record offices, archives, libraries and museums. In the clip below, Mandy Smith explained how the narrative of her character, Toildy, evolved with further historical research uncovered about the financial realities of coal-makers in the 17th century.
Amanda (Mandy) Smith interviewed by Rachel Hasted, excerpt from ‘Interviews with Historical Re-Enactors’, catalogue reference: C1997/04. © Rachel Hasted.
So everything I add, and even now I keep adding to Toildy as I learn new things I might change, I say ‘no that’s not going to work, no that’s not right anymore’. For example, we always say charcoal makers were quite poor, now a couple of years ago we discovered from an inventory, several inventories that were published of dead charcoal makers in the period that in fact they weren’t very poor, not the charcoal makers themselves they were very wealthy men. So now, if I talk about Billy, yes he has a lot of money, he chooses to live this lifestyle, I don’t, he doesn’t pay me, but he does.
As well as the abstract, research provided a foundation of knowledge for the physical construction of clothing and artefacts. All participants wore some form of handmade costume, whether made by themselves or another member, and there were strict guidelines to follow, subject to review to ensure authenticity. It was also common for pop-up events to feature a replica campsite that often included a marketplace coined ‘Traders’ Row’ – the location to purchase everything from weaponry to eating implements.
The most extraordinary pattern discovered within these interviews was the extent to which personal experiences seep into character narratives, and how these personas drew from real life.
Joy Shillaker weaved research into her family tree, as well her own personal experiences of miscarriage into the narrative of her character, which encouraged visitors to share their own similar experiences of loss in return. Through this process, participants created a fascinating intersection of authenticity and ‘phantasy’ through empathy.
Elizabeth (Joy) Shillaker interviewed by Rachel Hasted, excerpt from ‘Interviews with Historical Re-Enactors’, catalogue reference: C1997/10. © Rachel Hasted.
I mean how far do you develop your characters? Do you think about their religious beliefs and who their parents were and all that? Do you have quite a strong sense of these people?
Yes, I’ve got a family tree. What I tend to do is that my character, both the characters I play, have got the same- similar things have happened to their parents for instance. I find that better than making something up because that way you don’t forget. My mother died when I was 32 in real- in my 20th century, so therefore- that was the age my mother died, she dropped dead of a heart attack in all of my characters. And there are people that will chat to you, I’ve had experiences sharing things like miscarriages with visitors, you know because one of the things of women in the 17th century is they probably didn’t have very many periods, period was a failsafe, most of the time if you were married you were probably pregnant or breastfeeding, so you weren’t on the monthly cycle type thing, but of course with- you probably lost a lot more children than standard. And it’s quite interesting that if- women will ask you about your life, so you give them a 17th-century view, and before you know it they’re telling you things that have happened to them, and you can end up, you know it becomes a little bit more than re-enacting then.
Gender and sexuality featured heavily in the experiences of women re-enactors. Due to the physical demands of the battlefield, women tended toward the domestic roles of living history organisations. Despite this, there was still a strong female presence within the Sealed Knot, and it was remarked that often the women were far more ferocious on the battlefield than the men.
Heather Nicholls interviewed by Rachel Hasted, excerpt from ‘Interviews with Historical Re-Enactors’, catalogue reference: C1997/05. © Rachel Hasted.
Was it common within that regiment for women to decide that they would play as soldiers?
There was about four of us that actually did go on the battlefield and I think I was the only one that was a lesbian amongst the lot, the other three girls were all married all on- and they were quite keen to actually get into the thick of it. And to be quite truthful the women were much, well aggressive with their fighting than the men were. It was quite frightening. If you had a woman soldier on the field you just stayed clear because basically the men knew that, and the women who knew women, knew that they were really out to do their bit and they weren't going to sort of let it, let them override them so to speak. We did have quite a lot of respect from a lot of men which was nice in a way because a lot of people think there was just the women never fought in the English Civil War but there's two sides to it, there's some that say they do and some say they didn't as soldiers but I'm afraid I'm one of those that says they do because if you're up against the threat and your husband’s just died or something like that, the first thing you do is to keep yourself alive and keep yourself going is to actually take an implement or whatever's laying there, pikes or whatever and just use it. There were a lot of women musketeers and so that was another thing that you know.
Hasted was also able to gather factual information on the realities of participating in re-enactment, including the dangers of the battlefield, tensions between different regiments and anecdotes of interactions with the public. Interesting insights reveal the realities of the lived camping experience of participants, as well as the difficulties that members faced in organisation management and the struggles to secure funding.
Paul Wheeler interviewed by Rachel Hasted, excerpt from ‘Interviews with Historical Re-Enactors’, catalogue reference: C1997/08. © Rachel Hasted.
I mean, from the point of view of safety too, you've got to think about it a lot.
Yes. Safety, you know, it's of paramount importance, all sorts of things happen with muskets, they go off accidentally and people get shot at close range by mistake and people get fired on by ram rods that they've left in the barrels and things like that. But if you're going in clubbing your musket against someone else then that can be dangerous, I've had 14 stitches put in the side of my face around here one time as a result of the serpentine which is the little mechanism which holds the slow match and when you pull the trigger that goes into the flash pan. Where clubbing against someone else, where he pushed me over and landed on me, his serpentine just tore the side of my cheek right open.
Yeah, it's not really expected.
And I've, yeah, so, these things happen and the fact that the only two serious injuries that have occurred with me were as a musketeer and the other one was where someone dropped a pike on my head. I thought I was well away from a collapsing pike block, but obviously not sufficiently far away. And because musketeers wear soft felt hats as opposed to the helmets which the pikemen wear. This pike sort of landed on top, I suppose, if the pike is 18 foot tall and it's held off the ground anyway, you've got, say, 20 odd foot coming down on top of you. And quite simply the force of the thing landing on my head split the top of my scalpel a bit and I had to have some stitches put in that.
The authenticity of the experience proved overwhelming for others. Darren Tansley recalled feeling the realism of his role as a peasant beekeeper approaching a gentry member to gift him a pot of honey, knowing his place was below that of the other gentleman. Anecdotes like these highlight fascinating class structures that emerged among the volunteers simply because of the characters they had chosen to portray.
Darren Tansley interviewed by Rachel Hasted, excerpt from ‘Interviews with Historical Re-Enactors’, catalogue reference: C1997/09. © Rachel Hasted.
Right, so people sort of stay with this really all the time that they're at Kentwell.
Yes, and it can become quite frighteningly realistic for you taking part in the event. I'll give you an example. I lost a knife on the first night, which I was going to be using for making the scabs. So it's a special hooked to knife, they're very difficult to get hold of., they aren't actually made anymore, this was my late grandfather's. And so I put a reward up of a pot of honey for the return of the knife in the mess hall area. And one of the people found it a couple of days later and I got the knife back one evening and spoke to the chap and said, thank you and that I would bring him a pot of honey but in character as part of the business of the day. And I'd heard that he was Sam the yeoman farmer and where he would be. And so I travelled over with my pot of honey and spoke to some of the people who were working there in Tudor and they pointed me in the direction of the said Sam. And I stopped because he was dressed in really fine clothing, he had a sword hanging from his belt and I'd expected a peasant farmer with a scythe who was working out in the fields, and it was obvious from his clothes that he was a man of some stature and importance on the estate and he had his own servants and his own house. And it literally did hit me that I was a peasant approaching this gentleman and I hadn't expected it. And it was the most strange feeling to actually know my place was below his just from looking at the person. Whereas in 20th century you can't tell from a person's appearance what their station is in life or where you fit into the scheme of things, not to that extent anyway. So you get into the character to a greater extent than you think you do. It can become quite frightening really.
What Hasted's interviews ultimately reveal is that the line between authentic history and imaginative play was never as clear as the critics claimed. Re-enactors brought their grief, their family histories, their existing skills and their class consciousness into the past with them, and the past, in turn, shaped how they understood themselves. Whether or not that counts as real history probably says more about how we define the word than about anything happening on the battlefield.
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