Waltham Forest Oral History Workshop

Waltham Forest Oral History Workshop (WFOHW) was formed in 1983 to record the memories of people in Waltham Forest.  It is one of the longest-established oral history groups in London and, over the past 24 years, has built a community archive containing more than 500 recordings.

WFOHW has published eleven books or pamphlets on many aspects of life in this part of north east London, looking at a changing social landscape as well as some personal stories.

WFOHW aims to:

• interview local people, record their memories, and preserve the recordings for future generations, in the Vestry House Museum, Walthamstow;
• publish books when each project is completed and deposit tapes from interviews for public use at Vestry House;
• make more links with other oral history sites in the UK and worldwide.

Recent oral history projects include:

• Coronation Gardens: the oral history of an urban park (including interviews with 20 local people about what the Gardens meant to them at different periods of their lives)
• Pubs
• Leyton Cricket Ground
• Jewish History.