In this new series we’ll be sharing the stories of the people that make the Mass Observation’s project possible, our writers, also known as ‘Mass Observers’. The Mass Observers are volunteers who give their time to share their thoughts, feelings and opinions with the archive. Some writers contribute over decades and some just over a few months.

All responses are anonymous, but every writer is given a code. This, along with their occupation, living location, gender and age are written at the top of every response.

T5672 has been writing for the archive since 2015.

Why did you want to write for Mass Observation?

I was delighted to find out that Mass Observations existed, as it’s something I’ve been doing most of my life anyway. That is, taking notes, photos, and recording little audio vignettes of life. I have kept a private journal for many years, with entries going back decades. Over the years I have used many different journaling and note-taking systems. These days I have consolidated most of these into one timeline, with various other sets of information as appendices – things like scanned copies of receipts, cards, letters, documents, drawings, leaflets – almost anything that I feel I had some part to play in (I don’t keep public things that are somebody else’s responsibility, like books or newspapers). My photo collection is part of this chronology, as are emails, texts, WhatsApp messages, postings to online forums… I’m a bit of an obsessive archivist. I also keep things on behalf of my family. For example, when my Grandad died, I scanned his photo collection, and several boxes of his documents and keepsakes.

I keep nearly everything digitally, and very little physically. I wouldn’t have enough room to keep everything as physical copies. I think of this all as an extended multimedia journal. Over time I have tried to organise this collection in various ways, and I plan to serialise it all as a collection of PDFs which could in principle be printed and bound. However, there is an immense volume – likely well over a million pages, so it should probably remain digital.

So, to sum up, I enjoy writing for Mass Observation because it feels like putting a small part of the above project out into the real world. If nothing of the main journal survives, perhaps a small echo of it will live on in the MO archive.

What has been your favourite Directive theme to respond to? Why?

I liked the Future of Consumption one as it gave me a chance to speculate about the far future.

Is there anything surprising that has come from writing for Mass Observation?

Nothing that springs to mind.

If someone was to read your writing in the archive, what image of you do you think/hope they would have of you?

I hope it would come through how dedicated I am to my family, and how their concerns are always the driving force behind everything I do.

Are there any topics that you hope Mass Observation will cover in the future?

Here are some ideas:

a) Supermarkets. We spend a lot of our lives in them. How do we shop for deals, where do we go to get the things we need?

b) Building the future. What are we all working towards? What long term goals do we have, either personally, or for the family, or even the country or the world? What are we hoping/fearing life will be like in 10, 20, 30 years, and what are we doing today to make this happen / not happen? Are we putting our money where our mouth is in terms of our predictions and expectations for the climate, for the economy, for culture? Are we putting up solar panels and heat pumps, or building fallout shelters?

c) American influence on British identity. What US TV do we watch? Do we follow US news? Britain has adopted some Americanisms, like a Supreme Court – do we want to see more of this, or less? Do you use American idioms and slang? Do you have family in America? Do you feel any national kinship with America given the shared history? What does the “special relationship” mean to you? Are we moving closer to being a 51st state, or further away? Is that good or bad?

Can you tell us a bit about where you write your responses?

Attached is a photo of my new office. We’ve just moved house in the last few weeks. In both houses my office space was in the spare room, but previously it was a small converted nursery room – now I have much more space to organise things properly. Visible from left to right are: the sofabed (this is the guest room when our parents come to stay), the doorway to the landing, the main desk with personal computer underneath it and two work laptops on it, and then on the second desk stacks of files and paperwork in various stages of being scanned, filed, shredded and binned.

Meet the Mass Observers is a new feature highlighting the people that make the work of Mass Observation possible. If you’d like to know more about writing for MO visit our pages on becoming a Mass Observer.