In early 2022, the Club’s Oral History Group began recording a series of interviews to capture the memories of people in the village about the effects of the Covid pandemic on them to make a record for future generations. The aim was to discover how the Covid pandemic had affected people in Radley. To do this, the Group sought to interview people from a range of different categories – particularly those involved with key village institutions like the village shop, the church, the school and then people running a business, working from home, retired, medical professionals, looking after their children, caring for someone – a whole range of people.

The Group chose a period from early 2020 to the end of 2021, covering the three lockdowns. It produced a timeline as an aide-mémoire for interviewees and interviewers. The next step was to develop a framework of questions. The Group wanted the interviews to be informal chats based loosely on this framework.
Download the timeline as a PDF

The aim was 20 interviews; in the end 18 were recorded over the next two years or so.

In September 2024 the Oral History Group gave a talk about the project to the Radley History Club meeting on 9 September 2024. This talk covered the common themes uncovered by the interviews and the insights gained from them. Three members of the Oral History Group – Joyce Huddleston, Colin Orr Burns and Tony Rogerson – presented different parts of the talk. The fourth member, Tony Gillman, recorded the talk.

You can download an edited version of a transcription of this recording interspersed with slides from the presentation. Download the PDF