**Research Firsts Exhibition: Image and accompanying text by Doris Ruth Eikhof**
![table with various items includng cup and saucer and a pad with penned notes][1]
My first interviewee was a catch: a much-admired, celebrated actor who had shared the stage with the good and great of German theatre.
Five minutes into our interview she broke into tears: “I just heard they aren’t renewing my contract because I am too old.”
Her beloved stage career lay in ruins, but to help a young researcher she bravely spoke a heartbroken account of it into my dictaphone.
She taught me what is still my first rule of empirical research: My data is other people’s lives – hopes, dreams, traumas, everything. My work better be worthy of their trust.
[1]: https://mfr.osf.io/export?url=https://osf.io/download/2zfvx/?direct=&mode=render&format=2400x2400.jpeg