By Emily Warwick
As a University of Brighton Masters student I have been volunteering with the Mass Observation Archives at The Keep as part of my course. The team have been incredibly welcoming and are really helpful if I have any enquiries on something I haven’t encountered it before.
As part of my time spent volunteering with Mass Observation, I have been transcribing some of the Covid-19 diaries from the 2020 Directive. These diaries were started at the beginning of the UK lockdown in March and run through until the mid-summer time when restrictions were lifted for the first time. One of the diaries I transcribed was a 39 page diary which acted as a daily update on the situation of the country at the time. The individual writing for the archive documented major political events whilst also contextualizing it within the framework of everyday life. They speak of both the difficult times they faced from being away from family and friends for long periods of time as well as the small celebrations which boosted the spirits of households nationwide. One of these celebrations included the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War as neighbours gathered for socially distanced VE day street parties. It was lovely to read through this section and see how spending time in the sunshine with others boosted morale and having these diaries documented in history provides us with lasting perspectives of the everyday lives of people in Britain in times of major events such as the pandemic.
The actual process of transcribing is simple and instructions provided to you are easy to follow. Sometimes some words may appear to be illegible and so you may not be able to transcribe them but this isn’t a problem as the step by step guide advises you on how to go about these situations. Sometimes the Directives discuss sensitive material and this is something to be aware of, but the team are incredibly helpful and understand if you need to step away or move onto a different submission.
One of the Directives I encountered addressed the difficulties faced by those who were considered to be vulnerable due to their long term health conditions. It is important to write and record these histories to encompass perspectives from all walks of life and the open nature of this Directive allows for this. I also think it is interesting to consider the length of individual diaries as some people felt the need to document more than others and Mass Observation allows people to choose to write about what feels important to them in the format that suits them the most. This means that some diaries focus on politics and the government, whilst others focus in on the importance of their time with family and how they felt during the different stages of lockdown.
To conclude, the act of transcribing these diaries felt very important to me as you are helping the archive to become more accessible to a wider range of people online as well as the physical copy within the building. It is really interesting to read through the Directive and see how other people were affected by the major changes. So many times when I was reading through the diaries I had completely forgotten certain events had happened and it was nice to relate to them in some way. I have really enjoyed transcribing some of these diaries and I would highly recommend transcribing to anyone who is interested in volunteering and wants to become involved with the Covid-19 collections.