THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE TRUST – Sara and Matthew Parker
The Archive began one windswept, miserable, East Anglian day in January 1981. I had picked up a hired box van to embark on the collecting of Charles’ tapes and papers which he had distributed across the country, depositing it with any willing soul with space. Many years before he had, in an ‘artistic’ moment tried to burn it all in the garden at Park House and my mother and I had to restrain him. Our actions then were to haunt us now.
Battling into a head wind, which caused a dramatic reduction in top speed, I headed into Suffolk to collect lecture notes and tapes left with Tony Schooling. My first pickup was disappointing, a modest box placed in the cavernous van. Next, to Herefordshire, to collect Phyl, my mother. Then, to Birmingham, a rather better volume there, still not justifying my choice of van however. We then returned to Herefordshire rather late to unload and prepare for the next day.
Nottingham was the last pickup. When we arrived, we were shown a garage, nicely shelved by Charles, which was full, with only very narrow walkways between the shelves. This took a few hours for my mother and me to load into the van. We must have arrived back in Herefordshire around 7pm and, after the essential cup of tea, started to unload the van and store the tapes and papers on the back landing of my mother’s 16th century rented house. By about 1am we had moved it all and were now exhausted. It was only then, when we stood back to admire our work, we noticed the landing was rather lower than when we started, but there was nothing we could do about it. Luckily it did hold for the few months it took to find a home for it.
That weekend was probably the most tiring I have ever experienced, it was also charged with emotion for obvious reasons, which was added to by the suspicion and hostility we sometimes encountered. I can understand this: people were entrusted with a life’s work and were suspicious of our motives, but if it had not been gathered together the creation of the Archive would not have happened and the riches it contains would have been gradually winnowed away over the last 25 years.
These are my brother Matthew’s vivid memories of those embryonic days after our father died. I was away travelling and the enormity of Charles’ legacy must have hung heavy on him and my mother as they set about forming the Trust – something completely new to all of us. But with the support of Philip Cox, a close family friend who had served in WW2 with father, he and my mother were directed to Bettinson’s Solicitors and the invaluable help of Paul Pharaoh.
And so the Trust was born in the Spring of 1982 with the signing of the deed on March 3rd. The family appointed trustees with another friend of Charles, Richard Groves at the helm as chair, and Philip Donnellan, a close BBC colleague as secretary. The trustees we had then and in subsequent years proved to be hardworking, committed, knowledgeable and enthusiastically supportive of Charles’ work and the Archive. In those early days the Trust included Matthew as treasurer and myself, Cathy Mackerras from West Midlands Arts and Pam Bishop who as a Birmingham musician and member of the folk community is the longest serving trustee. Pam’s support, loyalty and commitment has been invaluable including the development and responsibility for the website. She is now Deputy Chair of the Trust.
Yet it wasn’t all plain sailing. Forgive the liberal sprinkling of nautical metaphors. They are a nod to Charles’ past as a submarine commander during WW2, and his love of sailing, having been born on the South coast and a member of the sea cadets as a very young lad.
On April 18th 1982 the Trustees held the first open meeting at Aston Centre for the Arts, looking for guidance as how to proceed. The ‘Friends of the Charles Parker Archive’ was established and an Executive Committee was appointed to link the Trustees to the Birmingham community. Meanwhile a temporary home for the collection was offered for the next 12 months at Fircroft College of Adult Education where Charles had been a guest lecturer running radio workshops as part of the WEA movement. Two months later in July 1982, the collection was safely stored at Fircroft – and Richard Groves and Philip Donnellan had begun fundraising to establish the Archive in a suitable permanent home. They secured a grant from West Midlands Arts and an offer from the University of Birmingham to house the collection.
On July 12th 1983 the Archive was formally handed over to the University at the Birmingham Radio Festival, but the collection remained at Fircroft until the University found accommodation large enough to house the thousands of hours of recordings on reel-to-reel tapes, enormous amount of accompanying paper work, programme notes, articles, correspondence and Charles’ substantial book collection.
Finally in May 1984 the collection was moved to the University but the space proved unsuitable and the hunt to find a suitable home for the Archive continued. Then in January 1985, Birmingham Public Libraries offered to take the collection, moving the tapes and papers to the Library in April, followed by the books in October. With the collection secure in its new permanent home, work began in earnest to establish the Archive and make it accessible. The Trust looked for funds to pay for an archivist and technician and in November 1985, the Wolfson Trust offered a £15,000 grant over two years.
Exploratory discussions had already begun in the February with the National Sound Archive about how best to conserve the collection – particularly the quarter inch tape which it was feared would deteriorate – and in December 1985 the massive task of copying the reel-to-reel tapes onto cassette was started by Philip Donnellan and retired BBC studio manager Mary Baker – a process which was continued by Chas Whiting. Mary had been Charles’ right hand technical support particularly during the studio recordings of the Radio Ballads. Her role included playing edited audio clips into the mix with precision timing from cumbersome studio reel-to-reel machines and effects discs, as well as mastering and solving any technical issues.
The official opening of the Archive was on June 9th 1986 in the old Birmingham Library building in Chamberlain Square. The event showcased contributions from other supporters of Charles’ work with The Living Word exhibition created by Graham Peet and the publication of the pamphlet Aspects of a Pioneer by Trevor Fisher. There was also a set of commemorative postcards of the Ballads, derived from Eric Fraser’s drawings for the Radio Times and T-shirts for sale featuring the “zip mouth” cartoon by David Yann to protest against Charles’ controversial ‘sacking’ from the BBC in June 1976 as well a re-issue of the cassette of our father singing, “Charles Parker at the Grey Cock”.
Charles always wanted his work and recordings to be accessible and in January 1987 Research Fellow Julie Henigan started on the groundwork of cataloguing, and it proved such a enormous task that the initial term of one year was extended to April 1988. The next month, May 1988, we sadly lost the Trust’s inaugural chair, Richard Groves. Radio Critic, journalist and writer Gillian Reynolds took up to the challenge and was elected as the new chair. We owe a great deal to her competence, vision, determination and hard work. She deserves our very special thanks.
In October 1989, Ewan MacColl also died and in November the Trust took part in “Ewan MacColl, the Red Megaphone”, a weekend event organised by political theatre group Banner, which Charles had helped to set up. During 1991 and 1992 the Trust was involved in other events including a Birmingham Library project “The History Van”, whilst Philip Donnellan presented a paper on Parker’s early production work to the Readers and Writers Festival. The Trust also published a cassette “Ewan MacColl: the Voice of Experience”.
In February 1993 the Trust was offered an award of £30,000 from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts, and commissioned a travelling exhibition Man with a Microphone which was designed by Graham Peet using the latest cutting-edge CD-ROM technology. The exhibition was launched at Birmingham Library in 1994, then travelling round the country to Victoria Theatre in Stoke, the Birmingham Readers and Writers festival and then between May 1995 and March 1998 to Lowestoft, Jubilee Arts in Sandwell, the South Riding Folk Network in Sheffield, the University of Sunderland, the University of Birmingham, Newark & Sherwood College and a Local History Fair in Birmingham.
In 1998 Topic Records re-released the Radio Ballads on CD. During Charles’ lifetime they had originally been available on vinyl.
In March 2001, after five years of preparation the Trust’s application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for digitisation of a proportion of the tapes was submitted, and in July the HLF awarded a contract for the project “A Future for Ordinary Folk”. Some amendments were required, but Marie Stephens was appointed Project Officer from September 2002 for one year. Again there was so much to do that an extension was granted, and after that the work was continued by Fiona Tait and the library’s Connecting Histories project digitised the remainder of the tapes by Feb 2005. In the meantime, the Archive became fully available in CD format with an opening event in June 2004.
A couple of months previously in 2004 the first Charles Parker Day was initiated by Professor Sean Street at Bournemouth University in the city where our father was born. Many thanks to him. Since then, various universities around the country have hosted what has become an annual event commemorating our father’s birth and his work – and now includes the prestigious Charles Parker student prize.
We would like to thank everyone who has over the years given a lot of time and effort and money to create the Archive and fulfil its goal of making Charles’ work available to all. Trustees like oral historian Helen Lloyd and author Peter Cox who wrote the definitive work on the Radio Ballads Set Into Song and now edits the Trust’s annual magazine Actuality. Those who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes such as Ian Parr who as secretary managed to make sense of the meetings - sometimes no mean feat – and who passed on the baton to Charles’ granddaughter Becky Andrew when he stepped down..
The trustees now include a diversity of talents including Tony Macaluso, who brought his experience developing the archive of the American broadcasting legend Studs Terkel..There are academics, oral historians, writers and programme makers like multi-award-winning Simon Elmes who, with his background as a BBC producer and editor, heads up the Charles Parker Prize, and Andy Cartwright who organises the CP Day itself. Many thanks to them and to Phil Maguire CEO of the Prison Radio Association who is the current chair of the Trust and past chairs including Tim Blackmore and retired BBC 4 Extra controller, Mary Kalemkerian.
Whilst there is still and we suspect always will be more to do and overcome to fully achieve Charles’ legacy, the Trust owes a debt of gratitude to our mother Phyl, Charles’ wife, who even after his death supported Charles and his work by setting up the Trust and providing the backbone of material for the enlightenment of future generations.