History man to retire

But here he was, a twentysomething with a Beatles 'mop-top' being given the unenviable task of transforming Oxford's local history archive.

"I remember an older man coming in to see me one day, pretty early on in my job - the look on his face when he realised the local history librarian was just a 'youngster'!" he said.

But young as he was, Malcolm Graham had a love of history in his blood.

He explained: "There was a character in the Beano - I can't remember his name - but he had a pair of shorts which sent him back through time. I was intrigued by that."

At ten, he owned an impressive collection of old bus tickets.

"I'm also told I would drive my mother mad 'testing' her on the birth and death dates of the kings and queens," he said.

"I suppose all the signs were there that I would become a historian."

And lucky for us he did.

When he arrived in Oxford the collection was housed in St Aldate's.

"I was pretty appalled at our resources," he admitted. "A couple of drawers held the entire map collection."

The archive had been started in 1890, but had never had a full-time manager before - and it showed.

"The saving grace for me was the Henry Taunt Collection," he said.

The Taunt collection - 15,000 glass-plate photographs of people and views of Victorian and early Edwardian Oxford - dates from 1860 to 1922, when Mr Taunt died. And Mr Graham spent much of his early years in Oxford cataloguing what he calls the "treasure trove".

He said: "Much of it was still stored in original albums. There were photographs in envelopes with Edward VI stamps on them! It took so much time sorting it out - but what a pleasure."

His first book - published in 1973 - was about the photographer and his work.

But while he was passionate about the Taunt collection, his real love has always been unearthing the everyday history of places.

"Oxford has many other sides," he said. "I explored Osney Island, Jericho, all over. I wanted to find out about local history and make it available to people, both those that lived here and visitors too."

His wanderings in Jericho resulted in the booklet One Foot In Jericho, the first of 12 One Foot In guides still used today by the city council's conservation officers.

He said: "It was more of a fold-out pamphlet really. And I probably thought I knew much more than I actually did back then, because I had so many comments about it and people wanting to add to it that it had several editions.

"But that's what I love about history - it's democratic.

"People can say 'that's rubbish. That's not what happened'. Everyone experiences it and has something to add to it.

"When I left university I thought you learned about history from reading books - now I know the best way to learn about it is from the people who have lived it."

He continued: "For the first year in the job it was just me, then a year later I had an assistant.

"When we moved here to the Central Library in 1973, we had four staff and were open for 50 hours a week, although it was very quiet - nothing like it is nowadays - with just a few calls and letters each week."

When BBC Radio Oxford was launched, he asked for a tape recorder to record its programmes for the archive.

"There were definitely a few raised eyebrows. I think some people thought 'the youngster' was upstairs listening to music," he said.

In 1974, the reorganisation of local government made Mr Graham an employee of Oxfordshire County Council - and responsible for the local history collections in all the county's branch libraries.

Inquiries increased by 400 per cent in ten years and he started to refer to his field as local studies, rather than local history.

Eager to get out and about, his lectures have made him a familiar face around the county.

And the collection has grown and grown.

When the Centre for Oxfordshire Studies was formed in 1991, it doubled the number of photos to 140,000, doubled the oral history collection and created what is now one of the most interesting and varied local history collections for a city of Oxford's size.

Mr Graham said: "Seventeen years later, the number of photos is now 450,000, all Ordnance Survey mapping is available digitally and the introduction of Heritage Search enables people to trawl the resources of the Centre, the Record Office and the Museum Service in one fell swoop.

"It's unrecognisable from what it was when I arrived, but there's still so much to do. At the moment, we're inputting the thousands of handwritten information cards we have made over the years, into the computer.

"We'll never have enough storage, so you'll often find things lying about the place, but the comments we receive from visitors show how valuable the place is. People from all over the world come here to research their family history."

Now in his 60th year, his 'retirement' is unconventional. The Centre and the county's Record Office are to merge - a move he says is "sensible".

And he is looking forward to saying goodbye to budgets and strategy, so he can concentrate on the thing he loves - digging into the past.

"I have a year of projects set up for the county council and then I'll see if I'm still needed," he said.

"I've been writing for the website and I'm writing a very interesting booklet on Oxfordshire history for new citizens.

"Plus there is this" - and he points to a display of images of Oxford's St Ebbe's parish through the ages.

"This will go up at the front of the Centre. Just look at this picture of old houses - they're gone now, more's the pity, but you can almost imagine yourself standing there can't you? - wonderful."