Soapbox just slipped under my feet again.

What is the best way to collect and collate folk memories?

Remember that fellow back in the day who played concertina and sang the funniest songs? He passed away a few years/months/days ago. You know a bloke could tell some great stories about him. He sings those songs now.

Remember Mrs.????? Recited those powerful poems about her childhood and being raised in coalmining community.   She's in ???? nursing home. I saw her daughter at my grandson's school the other day. I wonder if she still has those poems. They would be wonderful set to music.

This is making me crazy. All that memory vanishing. What a great shame.

There is a woman making vidoes of her elderly mother as she sings her versions of gospel hymns, probably learned from her mother etc. and so on. They are posted on you tube. This woman is creating an oral history of her mother's knowledge and musical memory. But how long will they be preserved on you tube?

Who do you know? What did you learn from him, her or them? Please start recording it now. Write it down, sing it into your PC sound recorder and copy to CD. So may years along, someone may deposit the materials for archive. Then another person happens onto them and writes a book or gives a talk, puts them into a radio show or a play or a film to make these memories live again.