"As a historian, I'm very aware of the interplay between past and present. We think of history as a subject of study, but it's actually a lot more than that - it's a form of reality which is all around us and within us."

"I heard the phone ring and the archivist found herself having to break some very unpleasant and upsetting news to this poor woman about who and what her mother had been, and the archivist found it very difficult.

"As more and more people explore their family history, archivists are increasingly finding themselves in this sort of very delicate and difficult position."