article_snippet.sent: I really wanted to hear more about what John thought of John life.
article_snippet.sent: In the Seventies I was a huge admirer of the work of America's Studs Terkel and England's Tony Parker, both oral historians who aimed to give insight into the lives of those with no voice, by using recorded interviews, carefully transcribed, with no questions included and no comment or judgment.
article_snippet.sent: It was a magnificent technique which catapulted the reader movingly (and sometimes shockingly) into the hearts and minds of prisoners, drifters, miners, people on a housing estate, and so on.
article_snippet.sent: You felt you got to know people on a housing estate, and so on without the author-interviewer standing in the way -
article_snippet.sent: although, of course, all interviews have to be edited.
article_snippet.sent: I've often wondered what (the great man) would think of how we think about work now.'
article_snippet.sent: Well, I reckon the great man would continue to record what the great man heard, without surprise, and without trying to fit life stories into a pre-conceived mould.