Review of the Doyle Interview
BARBARA: One thing that I’ve noticed you do exceptionally well in your interviews is you will often build on what people are telling you.
JODIE: Yeah
BARBARA: So you’ll almost just throw the words in, in the course of having a conversation and there are a number of cases where people are actually telling their story…
JODIE: Yeah.
BARBARA: They’ve almost forgotten the chart.
JODIE: Which is brilliant. If they can do that or if you can swing it your way it is always a better thing to do. It’s preparation. Obviously with me five or six interviews, that spider diagram is becoming a part of me, I know what is going to be talked about. So if you can go through that spider diagram, or go through some words that you think are interesting and make sure you are familiar with those words before you go into the situation so that if someone starts talking about their kids and obviously the conversation is going to flow into family so you can throw grandfather and father into there and you can throw about friends you know, and then it is a case of talking about people then. So it’s always about trying to match the words with familiar conversation.
BARBARA: Yes, not being afraid to go with the flow.
JODIE : Yes
BARBARA: I thought that was something you did so well because perhaps you had an idea of the order that you were going to do things in.
JODIE: Yeah
BARBARA: But when it didn’t quite work out that way, you went with it.
JODIE: Yes.
BARBARA: And if you wanted to come back to something you came back to it
JODIE: Yeah
BARBARA: And you weren’t afraid to say so. You say, “Well I think there was one we forgot there.”
JODIE: Yeah
BARBARA: Or, “I wonder if we’ve covered everything?”
JODIE: Ye. It’s making sure you’re not afraid of obviously talking, saying things that you forgot. It really is a case of being yourself. You’re in their environment. Obviously it’s a bit different for you but you want to keep them at ease. Now if they are going to go off at a tangent, if they are going to be telling a story, for me it was a case of working through the sheet, from right to left, so it was working round the sheet clockwise, but if they were going to talk about, I don’t know, the fact that it was raining yesterday after they had gone to toilet and something about, you know, and then they went to bed for a sleep, well that’s three words that they have already used and the spider diagram’s completely lost. It really is a case for the interviewer, is to make sure you cross through the words as you are going through them. Making sure you’ve said what you’ve said, and if you want to have a pause to think exactly about where you are, don’t be frightened to have the microphone, let them talk, let them talk over what they are talking about. Let them keep discussing stuff and but just quickly look down on your page and quickly tick off the words that they are using so that you know where it’s going. It’s a case of you controlling the interview basically. You know where words are being used and where the interview is being taken.
BARBARA: Yeah, I think it’s quite a balancing act between being in control and actually appearing very relaxed.
JODIE: It’s a fine line. It really is but it’s not something to be scared about or nervous about. It’s a case of throw yourself in there and see what happens to be honest with you. Make sure you cover the words. It doesn’t matter if there are pauses, let them speak for a long time because sometimes if you interrupt someone they might have been about to say something that they have just remembered and they don’t want to talk over you. They might be scared to talk over you because you’re there and you’re trying to control the interview so sometimes, don’t say anything at all and that’s normally the best way to do it is to just let them speak freely.
BARBARA: There were a number of times when you just let things run on even though perhaps they weren’t quite on the topic that you thought you’d gone in to talk about but you got some really nice recording.
JODIE: Yeah
BARBARA: Maybe it wasn’t about the words on the list, maybe it was about other parts of people’s lives but you’ve got something really nice there so I thought the way you handled that was fantastic. You could bring people back on track but not until you felt that they had had their say..
JODIE: Their say…
BARBARA:…about what made them excited otherwise you’re losing a glorious opportunity.
JODIE: Exactly. I mean when it comes to words, it’s a case of, how does it affect them? How do they feel that the words affect other people? How its been a generational thing? How local do they feel? Do they think words mean anything? Where did they get this slang from that they use? It’s not just sticking to the spider diagram of words it’s exploring where those words have come from as well. And then sometimes they bring out the best stories.
BARBARA: Yes because at several points you actually get people to talk about language. What they understand by it, what they feel about the words they use, the accents they have.
JODIE: Yeah.
BARBARA: And how they change their language how they are aware of changing their language, or not which is always worth spending a bit of time talking through with people I would imagine?
JODIE: It is and not only that it is interesting as well. Interesting for me to find out and if you don’t listen to what they are saying you may miss something.
Just the smallest word from Lynnie talking about backslang. Well I have no idea what ‘backslang’ means. Well if I don’t have an idea what it means, I’m sure there are half a dozen other people who don’t know what it means. So therefore I’m going to go down that path, I’m going to go down that route of exploring. If it is interesting to you then it is going to be interesting to other people.
BARBARA: There were one or two other points where you actually followed a line, where you pick people up on something they said, you said, “Well what did you mean by that?” Or, “Did I hear that right?” The ones that I remember were when one of the boys talks about attractive or unattractive women and he actually uses expressions that you can hardly believe would be his natural choice.
JODIE: Mmmm I know.
BARBARA: So you challenge him in that and say, “Isn’t that a little bit of a male perspective!”
JODIE: Yes.
BARBARA: Would you really say “Lovely!”
JODIE: Lovely! I know that was quite funny actually and you’ve got to have a laugh with these people. You’ve got to sa, we’ll he’s an 18 year old lad. He’s a big lad. He’s an attractive lad. If he’s going to walk down the street, he’s not going to say, some girl walking towards him, is a “lovely” girl, so you know, it’s just picking up and having a laugh and saying, “You wouldn’t really say?” “What would you say?” And then obviously he opens up and says “I’d say, that bird” and all the rest of it and then it gets amusing and also you’ve got a nice little tale as well. He’s expressing to you the way he would speak to his mates, so it’s nice.
BARBARA: The other nice thing that you were not afraid to do was to say, “OK we don’t have the grandparent’s generation here but let’s just ask people, what would your gran have said, or what does your mother say?”
JODIE: Yes.
BARBARA: So you actually drew out of people things that they knew but didn’t necessarily use themselves.
JODIE: Yes, or weren’t present like you said with the grandparents.
BARBARA: You often covered one or two topics that could have been quite sensitive like playing truant or being grounded. Certain expressions that are quite strong and I noticed that you never passed any kind of judgement about what people said, in fact you almost went to the opposite end of trying to empathise with that situation, “Well I was grounded too and I don’t know if you have ever done this, I don’t know if you have ever stolen things, I don’t know if you have ever played truant”, but, so you were deliberately not passing any judgement.
JODIE: No. Like I said before it is a fine line between what you feel you can say but you have to remember the group of people that you are with. If it is a family, if it is a mixed diversity group, if it is, I don’t know, travellers or in an old people’s home. You need to remember to have respect for the people that you are with. You need to remember that obviously they may have their own way of dealing with things, their own religious aspects, they may have their own beliefs, they may have a younger generation there that you cannot swear in front of the children. You’ve got to remember so many things so when it comes to asking some of the sensitive questions like pregnancy, like drunkenness, like truancy, it is a case of not trying to imply anything because you don’t want to put the back up of people because you are in their home or you are in their environment and so obviously you don’t want the interview end because you have gone and said something.
BARBARA: Or indeed embarrass people in front of other members of the family.
JODIE: Or embarrass – exactly, exactly. When I actually arrived and the lad actually came downstairs his mum was the one to say, “He’s been a bit of a naughty one this one, he’s been grounded,” or whatever, so I wanted to obviously test the water and see myself before the interview started whether or not this was a touchy subject. So I said, “If you don’t mind me asking, what he’s been grounded for?” Well everybody started laughing. It was because, you know, he was caught drinking, drinking vodka at the back of some hills or something or the back end of a field, so I knew straight away that it was a bit of a joke so when it came to the fact of being grounded, I gave him a bit of a nudge and said, “I hear you’ve been grounded. Do you want to tell me a bit about it?” Well left the question open. If he doesn’t want to speak, that’s fine, and have it as a bit of a joke, “Never mind don’t worry about it”, or move on to something different. Always having it, as a bit of fun. But if it comes to any of the other words, not a case of tread carefully but just be aware of where you are and who you are speaking to.
BARBARA: Yeah I think you summed it up when you said respect and putting people at their ease and we can hear you doing that at lots of points, sharing a joke.
JODIE: Yes exactly.
BARBARA: And sharing an experience.
JODIE: Because you have to remember where you are. You have to remember that, you are being taken in by people that don’t know you and obviously, when you put those first calls out to find out who would be interested, well the majority of people they’re not doing it for any other reason but that you have asked them. They’re not getting anything out of it, it’s you who’s getting the interview out of them so you do have to be mindful of their time and obviously not to waste it and to make sure that they also enjoy the experience.
BARBARA: Can I ask you something different. There are a number of times during the course of the interview when something totally unexpected happens like somebody walks in through the door, the baby starts to cry and anybody who listens to the full recording will hear all these things happening although obviously in the little extracts its now always so apparent. How do you deal with the unexpected?
JODIE: Well you have to deal with it to be honest with a smile. It really is a case of goodness gracious you can see the gentleman walking to the door, you can see he is about to press the doorbell, he’s walking in, that’s great, you’re talking about something very interesting and then there is all this noise. It literally is a case of, “Don’t worry about that, yes of course, come in, sit down and settle yourself in. Umm, what were you saying again? Let me remind you. It was something about, I don’t know it was something about playing football in the street. Can we go back to that a second?” And get them to open up a little bit. Backtrack. Don’t be afraid to kind of go back over the ground that you have already covered so that you’re content, your recording, once you’ve edited it or once you wanted to take that little piece out seems seamless.
BARBARA: Taking it in your stride.
JODIE: Exactly. I mean if the baby starts crying or if she’s bumped her head or there’s always the case that you turn up and there aren’t enough people but you’ve always got to have a plan I guess. Whenever I’ve gone to interview a number of people or groups I’ve always made sure there are more numbers there than need to be so that when the people are there, like a family situation, well, it doesn’t matter that Dad’s not talking because he didn’t want to in the first place but he was there just in case.
BARBARA: I mean obviously when you are recording people it’s very nice if you can give them a copy of what you’ve recorded because that’s quite an incentive for them to take part and they have a memento of the event.
JODIE: Yeah and sometimes they like listening to themselves and listening to other people taking part as well so it is always a bonus if you can say, “I can throw in a copy as well”.
BARBARA: And in years to come these things become even more precious.
JODIE: Yes exactly.
< previous Page 8 of 8
