How to... videos
Total: 5
Featured Stories
Secretarial work, typing pools and using the first ever photocopier in the 1950s
Jacki Rogers talks about life during the 1950s training to be a secretary. She recounts her experience learning to type through 'touch type'and going on to work in a busy typing pool. She learned Pitman Shorthand and from then went on to work in her first secretarial job. In the 1950s office work was very different to how it is nowadays, there was an extremely strict protocol with bosses having their own lavoratories, dining rooms and even lifts. This all started to change in the 1960s. Jacki also talks about her experience being one of the first ever office workers to use the first photocopier, which was the size of a bus and took 10-15 minutes to produce one copy!
Flight of FANY!
During WW2 Elizabeth Ward was a member of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) working for SOE. By September 1944 she was stationed in Bari, Italy but a back injury meant she'd have to return to Britain sooner than expected. But her back was not so bad that before sailing on a hospital ship Elizabeth was able to take some leave. She wanted to visit Rome, which had only recently been liberated, and managed to get a place on a large American airforce plane that was about to fly there. But Elizabeth had no idea she'd be asked to help fly it! Elizabeth describes one unforgettable view from the aircraft - the sight down below of the devastating aftermath of the Battle of Monte Cassino. Info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monte_Cassino
My Grandpa, My Hero: Memories of Monte Cassino
Melissa recalls stories told to her by her Grandpa who served during WWII in the Battle of Monte Cassino, how he won the prestigious Medal of Valor and the heart rendering decision of choosing between England and country of his family and birth, Poland.
Earliest memory of World's Oldest man
Henry William Allingham was born on 6th June 1896 and, at the time he gave this interview, was a supercentenarian, World War I veteran and at the age of 113 years and 13 days, the oldest living man in the world. Here Henry talks about his earliest memories (around 1899), those of seeing his Father who was ill with tuberculosis. His father died when Henry was 3 years old and he was then brought up by his Mother and grandparents. Henry died not long after this on the 18th July 2009.
LAST SURVIVOR OF THE TITANIC
Elizabeth Gladys “Millvina” Dean (born 2 February 1912) is, at age 97, the last living survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic that happened on 15 April 1912. Millvina was the youngest passenger on board, and although she has no recollection of the sinking of the ship, here she recalls why her family were on the ship in the first place, and the time, when she was 8, that her mother told her she had been onboard.
HURRICANES AND SPITFIRES
William Walker was born in 1913 and later went on to serve in the RAF during World War Two. He flew Spitfire's during the Warm notably in the Battle of Britain.