ABSTRACT

In 2008 and 2009, Arthur McIvor, director of the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde, interviewed two men who were employed in reserved occupations in the Clydeside region of Scotland during the Second World War. In 2010, I reinterviewed the same two men as part of my PhD project exploring the wartime experiences of men in reserved occupations in the Clydeside area. The two interviewees were Henry (Harry) McGregor, born in 1922 in Glasgow, who worked as an engineer in wartime; and William (Willie) Dewar, born in 1924, also in Glasgow, and employed as a draughtsman in Hyde Park Railway Works in the Springburn area of the city during the war for the North British Locomotive Company. I thus found myself with a rare opportunity to compare the two sets of interviews, which had a common focus on the impact on masculinity of working in a reserved occupation. Little has been written on what happens when the same interviewees are revisited by different interviewers asking questions about the same subject area. This article briefly outlines the background of the reserved occupations before focusing on composure and relation of the reserved occupation war experience. I consider the literature on the popular memory of the Second World War in Britain and the extent to which the interviewees might have felt “prepared” for their interviews with me. The article offers a new and fascinating insight into the nature and practice of oral history, enabling a closer look at interactions among various factors at play, including memory, composure, and intersubjectivity, and how interviewees narrate their stories in the context of Second World War Britain.

摘要

在2008年和2009年，斯特拉斯克莱德大学苏格兰口述历史中心主任亚瑟·麦克沃尔（Arthur McIvor）采访了第二次世界大战期间在苏格兰克莱德赛德地区从事临时职业的两名男子。2010年，作为博士项目的一部分，我再次采访了同样的两名男子，探讨了克莱德赛德地区保留职业中男子的战时经历。两名被访者是亨利（Harry）McGregor，他于1922年出生在格拉斯哥，曾在战时担任过工程师。威廉（Willie）Dewar出生于1924年，同样在格拉斯哥，在战争期间为北英机车公司聘请为该市Springburn地区的海德公园铁路工程的制图员。因此，我发现自己难得有机会比较两组访谈，其中普遍关注对在保留职业中工作的男性气质的影响。关于不同的访调员再次询问同一受访者有关同一主题领域的问题时，会发生什么情况的文献很少。本文首先简要介绍了保留职业的背景，然后重点介绍了保留职业战争经验的镇定和联系。我考虑有关英国第二次世界大战的流行记忆的文献，以及被访者对我的采访可能感到“准备”到何种程度的文献。这篇文章提供了关于口述历史的性质和实践的新颖而令人着迷的见解，使您能够更仔细地了解各种因素之间的相互作用，包括记忆力，沉着感和主体间性，