An English Family Christmas recordings from the Great War

[Captain Lyerly]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1096964/Voice-past-Listen-family-Christmas-recording-hidden-Great-War.html

Voice from the past: Listen to a family Christmas recording hidden since the Great War


Ghostly voices from a family celebrating Christmas together during the First World War have been heard for the first time in nearly a century.

The recordings provide a fascinating insight into an English family living at a tumultuous time in world history.

Eight phonograph cyclinders, made of beeswax and soap, feature the Smith family from Salisbury in Wiltshire singing carols and discussing 'daddy being away at war.'

The early recordings were made between 1913 and 1917 and were then found by chance by Russell Barnes, 79, 18 years ago.

He found the cylinders among a box of records he had obtained through a newspaper advert.

Mr Barnes expected them to be music recordings from the era, which is not uncommon. But he was thrilled to discover that they were rare domestic recordings.

The wax cylinders are so fragile that Mr Barnes could not listen to them using his phonograph for fear of damaging them for good.

But 10 days ago he used a new machine that transferred the sounds on to CD. He used an Archeophone, created in 1998 by a French engineer Henri Chamoux. It is the only machine that is capable of playing the cylinders without damaging them and converts the sounds into digital format.

They feature the Smith family singing songs such as Ivor Novello's Keep the Home Fires Burning in 1917....

Fascinating.



Cheers!

Chas.

[chicar]

Touching !

BTW, i think it not use to make a new thread for those (althought there not yuletide related):

First Recording ever:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sound_recording

First voice recording:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard-L%C3%A9on_Scott_de_Martinville

Lincoln's Gettysburg address spoken by eyewitness William R. Rathvon :

(Excerpt from NPR) I Heard Lincoln That Day - William R. Rathvon, TR Productions

[Pivole]

That's so eerie, but really quite pleasant, what with their uncle down from london an' all.

[Arceye]

OK, well and good, but where's the women folk?