Next week marks three years since the Island initially went into lockdown as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. As the anniversary of this significant time in the Island’s history approaches, Jersey Heritage is asking Islanders to share their stories so that they can be recorded.
The charity is creating an oral history resource that future generations will be able to access to find out how it really felt to go into lockdown on 30 March 2020 and the impact that Covid-19 had on Jersey as a community. This resource will be carefully stored at the Archive with other digital records that help to tell different chapters of Jersey’s story.
Stuart Nicolle, Jersey Heritage’s Senior Archivist, said: “Jersey has seen a period of massive change and disruption since the global pandemic began. Three years on from the initial lockdown in Jersey, we felt it was an appropriate time to ask people to be interviewed about their Covid experience, while it is still relatively fresh in their memory.
“By recording these memories, we will be creating an oral history resource for future generations, who will be able to appreciate what Islanders went through during this turbulent time. Everyone had different issues to deal with when Covid-19 hit the community and our aim is to capture a variety of experiences of this time, whether we’re speaking to a health care professional, someone who had to home school their children, a family who needed to protect a vulnerable relative or any other experience of the lockdown in Jersey.”
The oral history project is open to Islanders of all ages. Anyone interested in taking part can get in touch with the Jersey Archive team by calling 833300 or emailing archives@jerseyheritage.org and they will arrange an interview time. The interviews will record sound only – no filming is involved. They can be conducted one-to-one or with a group, and either at Jersey Archive or a different location, such as someone’s home.
The oral history interviews are in addition to a project launched in 2020 shortly after lockdown began called ‘Documenting Coronavirus (Covid-19)’, which recognised that the pandemic would have lasting implications for Jersey as a community. Following a public appeal, a number of documents and objects relating to the pandemic were collected for the Archive, in addition to official documents from the Government of Jersey.