Voices From The 19th Century

  

Experiments With Audio:

3. Old Audio Clips

Entertainment in England in the 1800s consisted of hands on song and dance, verse and pantomine, and drawing room concerts. There were larger venues as well including shelters for the poor and infirm known as Workhouses. These establishments were reputed to be dark and damp places in which to lie alone and wait for death. One of the few highlights afforded these inmates in Berwick-upon-Tweed were the concerts put on by Bill Skelly and his elder sister.

Bill made up most of his patter and verse when he was in his twenties, that’d be in the 1890s, and he could still remember a lot of it in the early 1950s when he was persuaded to make a recording. The recorder used was apparently a borrowed one and manufactured before the time of sound insulation. The operator may not have had any experience using the machine and that, coupled with a lot of motor noise, has lent a  certain ‘ambience’ to these clips. Keeping these artifacts in their exsisiting condition is a joy akin to keeping old sepia stained photographs. Bill’s accent is Scottish Borders and if you want to listen to these  old audio clips, go to;

 http://unitube.otago.ac.nz/view?m=AGpb_Gz4BF 

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