Helen Clark (oral historian)

Helen Clark (born 8 August 1952) is one of the pioneers of oral history in Scotland. She was the keeper of Social History at Edinburgh City Museums from 1985 to 2005, then Special Projects Manager until her retirement in 2012. She shared the task of setting up a new social history museum, the People's Story Museum, which opened in 1989 and "explores the lives of Edinburgh's ordinary people at work and play from the late 18th century to today", using oral testimony and first hand experience.^[1]

The opening coincided with the publication of her first book, Sing a Rebel Song: The Story of James Connolly.^[2] Clark's second book, Raise the Banners High,^[3] was published in 1999 and illustrates and examines the wide range of Trade Union banners held by Edinburgh Museums. These banners and flags were carried by Edinburgh workers as symbols of their causes whether in celebration or to campaign against a working practice or injustice.^[4] Her third book, written with Elizabeth Carnegie, She Was Aye Workin'^[5] – Memories of Tenement Women in Edinburgh and Glasgow, published in 2002 used oral history sources to give "a vivid picture of tough, resilient women, and communities".^[6]

Clark, née Banfield, was born in London to parents Sheila, a teacher, and Geoffrey, a manager with Esso Petroleum. Clark studied Education and History at Cambridge University and in 1973, during her third year there, she met her future husband, Anthony John Clark, a scientist from Lincolnshire, who later became director of the Roslin Institute and was awarded an OBE. With John she has two children Charlie (born 1989) and Laurie (born 1991). After John's death in 2004 she married Jim Kendall in 2011.^[7]

She moved to Edinburgh in 1977 where she volunteered at the National Museum before getting her first job as an Art Assistant at the Royal Scottish Museum, now the National Museum of Scotland. In 1982, Clark became Assistant Keeper of Social History at Beamish North of England Open Air Museum in County Durham, where she first began getting involved in recording oral history, before returning to Edinburgh to become Keeper of Social History in 1985.^[8]

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