An update on the ‘Life in Words Project’ from Ruth Jewell

Thank you to all those who have contacted me about supporting the Life in Words Project. I just wanted to give you an update, as I know there are lots of you champing at the bit to send in your scripts – which is amazing.

As with anything of this scale, it is so important that we ensure that we have everything in place, before we open the doors to receiving your scripts. At present we are securing the funding, preparing all the documents for the ethics committee (this will ensure that everyone’s privacy etc. is protected), and creating the documents to ensure we capture all the information that we need, when you submit a script.

There is also continuing work taking place on the sample scripts that we have had submitted. This work will ensure that we are able to make the scripts searchable on lots of different levels, which will make them easily accessible to all types of researchers.

If you have read this far and have not heard of the project, then the aim is to preserve, initially 5,000, funeral scripts and to make them available to all types of researchers. The project is being hosted by Birmingham University and we will be accepting scripts directly from families, through Celebrants and members of the clergy. Each story that we tell is precious, it captures a moment in history and provides a wealth of information that can be used in so many different ways. We will be asking for the whole script, as often there are other speakers, or part of the story is told in the opening or closing words. Equally important to researchers are the additional choices such as music and poems. Each script will have surnames anonymised (keeping the first name gives the person their identity, whilst removing the surname gives them anonymity), but there will be the option to remove first names for those still living, if requested.