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Hello Listers

I listened to the re-run, 09.00 is too early for me.
I thought the BBC was at the bottom of the barrel when it found an expert 
anti with such a limited field.
I really laughed at old and female, I am now old but I was middle aged when 
I started, then so were many of us.
Over the years I have been, verbose, a Trotskyite, a militant, a 
reactionary, a revolutionary , even bloody awkward, but narcissistic was a 
first.

Although a great granddad I try to keep up with all things young so perhaps 
we should look for some 'tweeting' or 'texting' contributors.
I listen to 'phone in' radio. When it began there was only the phone number, 
then came email, then text, now tweet.
When the presenter gives out contact details that order is reversed showing 
the current trend in contact.
In the same way as I and I suppose many others have gone from Parker pen and 
lined pad to email.
R470 (only ten out Dorothy).

Bob

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dorothy Sheridan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2011 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: [MASSOBS] "The 'enduring appeal' of Mass Observation"


> This message has been sent through the MASSOBS discussion list.
> Remember, clicking 'reply' sends your message to the list.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dear MO-listers,
>
> Just listened to Margaretta Jolly's interview on the Today programme and 
> wanted to congratulate her on fielding that perennial critique of MO 
> repeated by her fellow interviewee, the Royal Historian, that it's all 
> older women from the South of England. (Excuse me, but as Royal 
> historian...... surely her remit is somewhat limited to a similar, even 
> narrower, demographic?).
>
> And I think her comment about "narcissistic" is unfair at least in 
> relation to the MO writers because, as Professor James Hinton points out, 
> what we find among these writers is a sense of 'active citizenship'. So 
> not narcissism but social and political awareness, commitment to a more 
> democratic society, interest in history, concern for the future and so on.
>
> Of course there ARE more older people in the MO Project and always have 
> been. And of course we must experiment with new ways of diversifying the 
> panel, but I did wonder what our builder from the East End of London 
> thinks when he hears this dismissal of his value, or our young student 
> writer from Manchester, or the cleaner from Limavady or Mr R480, the 
> retired HGV lorry driver who has written since this phase of MO began in 
> 1981? Or for that matter, all the many older women writers, the Mrs Lasts 
> de nos jours, who are dedicated and reflective contributors to MO?
>
> Actually of course the profile of the respondents to the 12th May 2010 
> appeal was interesting because of its relative youth in comparison with 
> the regular panel.
>
> What is always hard to fit into these 'sound-bite' news programmes (which 
> anyway are set up to put interviewees in artificial opposition to each 
> other) is a broader discussion about the nature of written documentary, 
> and about the other kinds of stories in the MO Archive.
>
> Still, well done Margaretta.... and by the way, the BBC invited us to 
> include MO extracts when they were creating the Domesday disc in the 1980s 
> so the MO writers are already on it. Does anyone know if the Domesday disc 
> is online yet?
>
> Dorothy Sheridan
>
>
>
>
>
> --On 12 May 2011 15:52 +0000 Jessica Scantlebury 
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9483000/9483733.stm
>
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