Here is a collection of sounds that we've successfully matched!
Evelyn Ficarra, California, USA
Long, long ago, when I moved to London in the late 70's, I heard a sound on ´óÏó´«Ã½ radio that has stuck with me and I would love to hear it again. It was from a natural history programme and it was the sound of a snail eating lettuce. It was beautiful! Tiny crunching noise but clearly audible, made, I'm sure, with a very special microphone. Did I dream this? Can you find it for me?
Brilliant news! We called someone at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Natural History Unit and asked them to check if they had any recordings of snails eating lettuce. Miraculously, they did have one, and it was recorded in the 1970s. Outlook played the sound out on-air for Evelyn, and here’s the clip if you’re curious to hear it too.
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Evelyn comments:
I've just managed to listen to the snail again, after all these years, on the Outlook website - how extraordinary! Thank you so much for finding it. Interesting how much one hears the lettuce, whereas what I'd remembered - or perhaps pictured - was the tiny teeth. I really appreciate having the chance to hear it again. This is a fantastic project, a big thank you to Outlook for saving our sounds.
Chris Parker, London, UK
I grew up in Sauverny which is on the French/Swiss border. My home was on what must have been one of the main cow-friendly routes up through the village to the higher Alpine grazing pastures. On lazy spring weekends, the sound of Alpine cow bells would wake me up, so that sound of bells reminds me of the endless blue skies and clear mountain air.I'd love to be able to capture it and use it as an alarm to wake me up during the normal busy weekdays in London, and remind me of a more peaceful, if somewhat illusionary, way of life. I wonder if anyone could record it for me?
Chris, we've raided the ´óÏó´«Ã½ sound library and come up with this sound of big cowbells.
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We hope this is what you were looking for. If anyone else can record cowbells for Chris then please get in touch!
Robert Kiene, Brussels, Belgium
You ask us to tell you what sounds are nostalgic, that you miss from home. I would nominate the sound of cicadas on a hot summer evening in my home town, Kansas City, Missouri. It brings to mind side porches with screens on them, sitting around talking to family and friends over ice tea. The sound pulses and forms a musical background to everyday life, lived at a slow relaxed pace. The cicadas have a seventeen year life cycle, so some years are not so loud, others are deafening.
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Steve Cameron, London, UK
What a great idea! It made me stop and think when I heard a clip about this on the World Service this morning. The sound I would really like to hear again is the sound of the sky lark. I was brought up in the Kent countryside and as a child, I spent my spare time roaming the fields with friends or walking the dog. I have now spent the greater proportion of my life living in London and as a consequence of your broadcast, I realise I miss the sights, sounds and smells of rural life.
The sound of the sky lark would bring back evocative memories for me. As children we used to lie on our backs in the middle of a field, miles from anywhere. Our eyes squinting against the sun as we tried to spot the skylark hovering somewhere above us in the clear blue summer sky and whose melodic song we could hear. Apart from the skylark, I remember it was usually completely quiet, apart from the sound of the occasional breeze gently rustling the nearly ripe yellow corn.
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