The Charity Show
Storytelling against the clock: Capturing veterans' stories before they're lost - with Martin Bisiker
Published: 23 March 2026 at 01:01 Europe/London
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Episode notes
In episode 45 of The Charity Show, Tim and Piers sit down with Martin Bisiker, founder of Legasee Educational Trust, for a fascinating conversation about one of the most quietly urgent missions in the heritage sector: capturing the testimonies of veterans before their stories are lost forever.
Martin's path to founding Legasee is an unconventional one. A career in television - including filming Julia Bradbury from a microlight over Victoria Falls - gave him both a love of storytelling and a growing unease about what was disappearing. When the last surviving First World War veteran passed away, something clicked. Armed with a camera and a sense of urgency, he began interviewing Second World War veterans, and what started as a personal project became a registered charity in 2012.
Legasee Educational Trust now holds an archive of over 700 filmed interviews, freely available to view online, spanning conflicts from the Second World War through to more recent campaigns.
Together, Tim, Piers and Martin explore:
- How Legasee grew from a nagging feeling that something important was about to be lost, and the chance encounter with a former Age UK executive that helped turn a personal project into a charity
- Why Martin insists the archive is freely accessible to everyone - not just researchers and academics - and the thinking behind that decision from the very beginning
- The art of the veteran interview: why open questions matter, how you create the conditions for people to open up on camera, and the moments that stay with you long after the recording ends
- The new Aden Emergency Project - a forgotten conflict from 1963 to 1967, now the subject of a National Lottery Heritage Fund-backed project based in Blackpool, including a remarkable collaboration with a drama college to bring veteran testimony to the stage
- Legasee's growing podcast output, from the acclaimed five-part D-Day series to the Berlin Airlift, and how volunteer expertise has shaped the quality of every episode
- The Local Heroes programme - Martin's plan to teach young people how to build their own archives, and why that feels like the natural next step for Legasee's mission
Useful links:
- Legasee Educational Trust – https://www.legasee.org.uk
- National Literacy Trust / National Year of Reading – https://www.literacytrust.org.uk
- Sheppey Pulse Network – https://www.sheppeypulsenetwork.co.uk/
- HANAH – Help Against Bullying and Mental Health – https://www.hab-antibullying.com/
- The Good Studio – Great content for good causes – https://www.thegoodstudio.co.uk
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