The British Library has just launched a new web site devoted to the accents and dialects of the north of England, fast disappearing. Collect Britain, putting history in place.

You can listen to recordings made from the 1950s of people talking about everyday life. They are saturated in locality. And just the sounds, intonation, cadence bring back so much to someone who lived and grew up there. Oral history even without hearing what is said. Archaeology of the voice.

Sensory memory. Auditory habitus?

Growing up on Holy Island, Northumberland.

Wonderful.