Written by: Katie Shepherd, RESP Fieldwork Intern
Hello world! I’m Katie, a Masters student at the University of Edinburgh studying Musicology. In collaboration with Ailsa, a final-year undergraduate student in Ethnology, we are Fieldwork Interns for the Regional Ethnology of Scotland Archive Project! Following in the footsteps of interns before us (see James’s and Rebekah’s posts), I’ve begun a diary-style record of our time working with the RESP.
![Fieldwork intern Katie stadning in front of a 16th century chapel arch. She has long bornw hiar, a white jumper, ankle length black skirt and white trainers.](https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/resp/files/2025/01/katie-blog-pic-225x300.jpg)
Fieldwork Intern Katie
![Fieldwork intern Ailsa playing Banjo on Arthur's Seat. She has long brown hair, a brown checked shirt and blue jeans on.](https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/resp/files/2025/01/ailsa-image--200x300.jpg)
Fieldwork Intern Ailsa
While the rest of this blog and the RESP website (which you can find here) give a good description of the RESP Project as a whole, I’d like to first give you a little context about our internship specifically. RESP have previously worked in Dumfries and Galloway, and also with the John Gray Centre in Haddington, East Lothian. Ailsa and I will be continuing to work with a community group hosted at the John Gray Centre in Haddington, called the Active Memories Group. Some of the group had previously taken part in a project called Jumpers for Goalposts, which resulted in a physical publication of their sporting memories in the form of an A4 booklet. Dick Short, David Elder and John Peters have all completed earlier interviews with the RESP Project, and are available on the archive. All are amazing sources of oral and community history!
The group in Haddington were such a vibrant source of oral history that the RESP have decided they’d like to hear more! After an initial meeting with the group (over a Christmas cuppy and a very competitive quiz!) and a further discussion, the theme of working life arose. The group brought in some photographs and memorabilia to frame some of their working memories, and it seemed a rich topic to explore in individual and paired interviews.
![A view of Haddington town centre including the John Gray Centre and a steepled building. The buildings in the photograph are made out of borwn stone and brick with a steeple.](https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/resp/files/2025/01/JGCEXT022-1-scaled-1-300x191.jpg)
John Gray Centre
So what’s next? Everyone in the group is keen to discuss memories of their careers, and while group discussions generate many insights, and a good deal of hilarity, recorded interviews offer an opportunity to share in-depth recollections and provide an accessible format to be uploaded to the RESP Archive Collections.
At the time of writing this post, Ailsa and I are set to begin recording interviews with group members in the next few weeks. The RESP project aims to facilitate the community in Haddington to create their own record of their life and society, and to do so by uploading audio recordings and photographs onto the archive website where they are available for everyone to view: the participants, their close friends and family, the public, the next generation…
There will be a number of outputs from this project, mainly an A4 booklet-style publication similar to Jumpers for Goalposts. The group at Haddington expressed a desire for a physical version of the interview recordings, along with some visual content to accompany excerpts. Ailsa and I will keep this blog updated during the process, will be posting on RESP social media accounts, and aim to release a few mini-podcasts and short videos. Watch this space!
Find us on Instagram: @resparchiveproject