Reinterpreting our oral history collections through a public health lens

In an innovative partnership, Birmingham Museums Trust and Birmingham City Council Public Health department collaborate to see how the heritage and museums sector can mobilise collections as a tool for public health engagement. Working in a matrix role, the Public Health Research Officer (Sophie Beckett) evaluates the role of heritage in enhancing individual, community and city-wide health and wellbeing.

The focus of this project is a 1984 collection of oral histories, titled ‘Food and Drink’. This collection documents the changes in food consumption over time, in the city of Birmingham. Foods such as tripe, cow heel and calves’ heads fade into memory, as the prevalence of global transport and containerisation brought food cultures, ingredients and innovations from abroad. The importance of a hot, sit-down meal at lunchtime wavers, and there is a boom in the number of takeaways offering a convenient alternative: in 1984, there were estimated to be 233 takeaways in Birmingham. Now, there are an estimated 875. Alongside the food infrastructure changes, individual attitudes evolved, with awareness of now established connections between eating a balanced diet and healthy living becoming prominent. The rise of immigration during this time also lends itself to discussions around hybridisation, cultural tolerance and the central value of food in cultural identity and heritage. Among those interviewed are the restaurant owners and workers, health inspectors, union officers, equipment manufacturers, butchers, fishmongers, school meal servers and pub owners of Birmingham at the time.

For more information watch the podcast video below by Aston Originals. The video features Sophie Beckett (Public Health Research Officer) talking about the project with Dr Brian Sudlow from Aston University.