Final preparations are under way for a powerful oral history project, curated by autistic people and individuals with learning disabilities, ahead of a national touring exhibition.
Our Life Stories, run by United Response and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, features 50 interviews with people supported by the charity.
Interviewees range in age from teenagers to older people and live in different parts of England, from Devon and Cornwall to York and Newcastle.
British Library archive
The aim of the two-year project, launched in 2023, is to preserve learning disability history for future generations; the stories will be archived in the British Library after the tour. The work also marks the charity’s 50th anniversary.
The work is believed to be the first peer-to-peer oral history project by people with learning disabilities. It acknowledges diverse life stories, ranging from time spent in institutions to the community care movement and campaigns for equal citizenship and employment rights.
It is a vital project, says team member and peer interviewer Sam Reynolds: “It means learning disabled people can tell their stories and people in the future will be able to listen to them.”
Project manager Charlotte Moore adds: “Oral history has recorded the life stories of numerous people from different backgrounds in their own words since it first originated.
“However, historically, people with learning disabilities and autism have been invisible within this heritage picture and marginalised within contemporary social and cultural life.”
The peer curators have been trained and supported to conduct interviews and deliver workshops.
The first of the 11 interviewers learnt interview skills and oral history techniques over three days in sessions led by Moore and Jan Walmsley, a historian, researcher and Community Living columnist.
Their skills in gathering information are apparent in the range of topics discussed by interviewees, from relationships and family to funny stories and more difficult “life-changing events”, says Moore.
As a peer interviewer, Reynolds learnt to have questions ready to ask “and come up with new ones in the interview”. The most challenging part of this project? “Remembering to listen and not just ask the next question.”
This problem was solved by not having all the questions on paper but using an iPad, and working with a smaller selection
of questions.
Reynolds adds that the best part of the work was “meeting new people, talking to them, travelling and getting coffee for the train”.
Moore, as project manager, says she learnt to allow more time than she had expected for interviews: “People who can seem really quiet at first can have truly powerful life stories if you take the time to listen, and it is important to capture everything that the individual wants to share.”
The greatest challenge was coordinating interviews around the country and ensuring the support needs of both interviewers and interviewees were met, says Moore.
People who seem quiet can have truly powerful life stories. It is important to capture everything
These was solved by sheer manpower, she adds, with staff throughout United Response in different locations – area managers, team leaders and support workers – recognising the value of participation in the project.
People took time outside their work schedules to ensure those they support could take part.
The final interviews will be shown at a touring exhibition in Leeds, York, Nottingham and Cornwall during February 2026.
The project team believes that the fact the project will be archived at the British Library is important
for preserving cultural heritage, celebrating achievements and raising public awareness about the difficulties people have experienced.
Reynolds hopes people who find out about the project while it is on tour will “learn about our lives and get to see the photography that one of the other participants has taken”.
For Moore, it is about enthusing people so they come away reflecting on a side of history they perhaps knew little about.
She adds: “I hope it will inspire many others to record their own life stories.”
