Oral history: banishing the backlog - The Hockey Museum
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Oral history: banishing the backlog
Oral history: banishing the backlog
March 26, 2026
Royal Holloway University doctoral student, Heathcliff Newman, joined The Hockey Museum (THM) in February 2026 on a full-time, three-month placement to inject fresh energy into our oral history project.
Since THM’s
original National Heritage Lottery Fund project
to interview 25 hockey luminaries concluded nine years ago, we have continued to conduct a significant number of new interviews. This programme of work has been led by volunteer Evelyn Somerville and has seen our archive of oral history interviews grow to more than 60 recordings. Yet, as THM has grown and diversified its activity, we have struggled with the capacity to make these recording publicly available on our website.
In 2025, we completed a project to improve the user experience and digital accessibility of the interviews already on our website. Read more about these exciting enhancements:
Oral history interviews enhanced with exciting new digital tools – The Hockey Museum
The Hockey Museum’s dedicated webpage for hosting word-searchable oral history interviews.
Our attention then turned to getting the backlog of interviews from our server onto our website without compromising on these high standards of accessibility. Enter Heathcliff, who has received a fully funded three-month extension to his PhD studies to help our curatorial team do just that.
Heathcliff is currently in the third year of his Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project “Identity Confusion and Mad Gain in Nineteenth Century England, France, and Russia,” in which he studies the representations of Dissociative Disorders in the nations’ literatures. Learn more about Heathcliff’s project here:
Identity Confusion and Mad Gain in Nineteenth Century England, France, and Russia – TECHNE
THM’s Curator & Museum Manager, Shane Smith, said:
“Despite only having a small staff team, THM refuses to compromise on the standards of digital accessibility that we set out to achieve with our initial oral history project a decade ago. From the outset, we never intended to put these interviews online in a conventional way – we want to maximise their visibility, usability and impact. In THM’s new strategic plan, our trustees committed to bringing our backlog of oral history interviews online and we are set to do just that.
“We have been fortunate to conduct fascinating interviews with the great and the good of the hockey family. Some of those interviewees must have wondered whether their recordings had ended up on the cutting room floor. Very excitingly, we will soon be able to publicly showcase the lives of these absorbing and dedicated hockey people for the enjoyment of others.”
Heathcliff has previously completed a placement at the Royal Holloway and Bedford College archives, working with a fellow Royal Holloway doctoral student to create an online exhibition and deliver talks across London and Surrey as part of the Bedford College 175th Anniversary Celebrations. This involved more traditional cataloguing, and archival work alongside an introduction to digital curation.
“Adventurers All”: Bedford College Travel Stories – Royal Holloway and Bedford New College
Speaking on the importance of THM’s oral history project, Heathcliff said:
“As a literature student, I love stories. Personal histories tell intimate tales of what can seem like vast topics. The Hockey Museum’s existing interviews range from the excitement of Olympic participation and work at the highest levels of sport administration, to the minutiae of club training and the harmonies, or disharmonies, of family life. Unlike letters on a page, oral history allows you to hear the person’s voice and feel more connected to their stories. In a world where people no longer write as many letters, it is easy for people’s stories to be forgotten. This project goes a long way towards avoiding that sad outcome.”
THM is also grateful to Lydia Ackrell, Abigail Miya, Graham Otway and Steve Lemottee for their involvement in interviewing, indexing and transcribing in support of our oral history programme. In particular, we are indebted to Evelyn Somerville for her commitment and expertise leading our oral history project over the last decade.
Doctoral student Heathcliff Newman pictured at Royal Holloway College, University of London
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