ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Bodleian Library, Oxford, delving into the manuscript collection that Iona Opie had deposited in the 1990s. The collection has been described as a veritable treasure trove of material ranging from erudite academia through to colourful childhood paraphernalia [which] opens a door not only into the world of the Opies’ lives and their intensive hard work and vigour, but also into the world of childhood and play from the 1950s through to the early 1990s. The Opie research on play more generally was cited several times in one of the readers for an Open University master’s module. The Opies took this world seriously and found ways of recording, documenting, and making sense of it. Their approach has been influential among successive generations of researchers, especially school-based ethnographers, as it recognises the importance of oral traditions, regional variation, and social change.
