Birmingham couple find purpose in the city’s old voices

Arts & Entertainment Desk 2026-10-07 12:01 2 min read

A couple overlooks the Birmingham city skyline from a high vantage point in February.

By beehiveweb.co.uk, adapted from Phil and Jan’s personal account published by Birmingham Museums Trust.

Phil and Jan hoped volunteering might give them separate activities after retirement. Instead, the Birmingham couple now visit the Museum Collection Centre together most weeks, helping turn recorded memories into readable text for the Birmingham Museums City Sound Archive.

Their work forms part of Voices of the City, a project making the archive publicly available. With headphones on, they transcribe interviews or check existing transcripts, helping people access accounts of Birmingham life beyond the original recordings.

A daughter’s encouragement after retirement

Jan retired in early 2012, and Phil left work in May 2013, allowing him to help care for his elderly mother. After her death in 2021, aged 100, he found himself at a loose end.

Their daughter Sarah, already a Birmingham Museums Trust volunteer, encouraged them to apply. Phil says they applied in 2023; Jan dates the start of her volunteering to March 2024. Neither wanted a public-facing role, so listening to recorded interviews suited them.

Jan brought experience from volunteering with the USA Athletics team before the London 2012 Olympics and transcribing historical birth, marriage and death records.

From Nechells memories to Birmingham’s music scene

Led by Siobhan Stevenson, the oral history work covers several collections. Childhood includes memories of early life around the First World War, while Heartlands records recollections of Nechells and Duddeston, around the Museum Collection Centre.

The couple began with Vibes, which explores Afro-Caribbean music culture in Birmingham from the 1980s onwards. Interviewees include sound-system MCs, band members and musicologists discussing Caribbean and African musical traditions.

For Phil, a music and history enthusiast, the recordings revived memories of a Jamaican single a friend lent him in 1970. For Jan, the work has brought new knowledge, skills and contact with other volunteers.

The archive holds interviews with Birmingham people from the 20th and 21st centuries. Some recordings can be heard through the Trust’s Digital Asset Resource; its volunteering page provides further information for people interested in contributing.

Source: Birmingham Museums Trust Stories

Context & actions About this article

Source check Source and attribution

This adaptation draws on Phil and Jan’s account published by Birmingham Museums Trust, with personal experiences attributed to them.

Checks

Distinguished the 2023 application date from Jan’s stated March 2024 volunteering start.
Retained the source’s descriptions of Childhood, Heartlands and Vibes.
Attributed the project leadership to Siobhan Stevenson as named in the account.
Included source-described archive access without implying that volunteer vacancies are cur...

Birmingham Museums Trust: Volunteering with the oral history project Find further coverage