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Listen first
People tell their own stories in their own words, with time and space to be heard.
About Our Lives, Our Stories
History belongs to everyone
A living archive founded by Carl Chinn MBE to preserve the voices, memories, and everyday histories that might otherwise disappear.
Our purpose
Every life is part of history
The histories that shape us do not live only in institutions and official records. They live in kitchens, workplaces, neighbourhoods, family photographs, accents, jokes, hardships, and the memories people carry.
Our Lives, Our Stories exists to hold those histories together and keep them safe. Through long-form conversations, archive films, practical guides, and tools that help families record their own memories, we are building a living archive of ordinary lives told in full. The aim is simple: to make sure the voices that shaped our communities are heard, valued, and never lost.
Carl Chinn MBE
A lifetime spent listening
Carl is a social historian, writer, broadcaster, and former Professor of Community History at the University of Birmingham. His work has always centred the people whose experiences are too often missing from formal accounts.
This project carries that work forward as a permanent, accessible archive for the people of Birmingham, Britain, and beyond.
Read Carl's storyHow we work
An archive built with care
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Keep it accessible
History should be open, understandable, and useful to the communities it belongs to.
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Preserve for the future
Today’s memories become tomorrow’s historical record when we take care of them now.
With thanks to
The people who keep it going
Our Lives, Our Stories began in 2025 as a labour of love. Carl Chinn and his two daughters started it, determined to preserve people’s voices, whether that is on the podcast or by giving everyone else the knowledge and tools to record their own stories and pass them on to the ones who come after. It is kept going by the people who believe in it.
Sponsored by the wonderful people at Norton’s.
Produced with Moment Creative, through Moment Podcasts.
The guided journal that, alongside any ad revenue, helps fund the archive.