Voices of Postwar England

Thanks to the ESRC and the Economic History Society for generously funding this event

The Liverpool Overhead Railway has a prominent place in people’s memories about the city.  It ran the length of the docks and was the daily transport for many to work. “Take a trip” on the overhead railway by clicking on this youtube video. To read more about the history of the overhead railway check out this website.

At the end of the Second World War in 1945 Coventry became the focus of an extensive reconstruction plan including a new city centre and a wide network of new housing estates. The city experienced considerable economic growth and social change in the post-war period and was heralded as a ‘phoenix’ rising from the ashes. Since his appointment in 1938 and the extensive bombing of the city in November 1940 the newly appointed city Architect, Donald Gibson, had been ‘looking to the future’ of Coventry’s urban planning. He recruited a team of assistant architects and surveyors, the Re-development Committee, initially to alleviate immediate housing needs due to the flourishing car and machine tool industries which attracted a large migrant workforce. While designing the new housing Gibson and his team also worked out a scheme for a new civic centre as a whole. The Council felt that the city lacked the cultural, social and educational buildings appropriate to a thriving industrial city. There was no theatre, central library, art gallery or public baths; it needed new civic offices and law courts and a new building for the school of art.

The modernity project that the city and the working-class people of Coventry were a part of in the mid-twentieth century created a space for constructing a new future and possibly new identities. The Coventry Evening Telegraph recognised in 1945 that “No Government alone could make Coventry prosperous. The good life would only be possible to the extent it was lived and worked for by the ordinary men and women of Coventry.”

The redevelopment of the city in the late 1940s and 1950s was of central concern to the planners, councillors and central government as it was thought to reflect the country’s wider recovery after the war and ultimately result in a ‘Better Britain.’ The rebuilding and planning of Coventry has tended to be told through the planners, architects and local government’s perspective. The oral history gathered for this project tells a different story of the reconstruction of Coventry in the postwar period as people remember going to school, playing on the bomb sites, and moving into newly built homes to accommodate those living in slum conditions or those who had no housing at all.

The image above is the front cover of a special edition of Architectural Design dedicated to the redevelopment of the city (December 1958). By the time this special edition was published the original city architect. Donald Gibson, had left the project and Arthur Ling had taken over. The edition included an extended essay by Ling called ‘Looking to the future’ about his own personal views of what Coventry could expect in terms of housing and a new city centre.

Volunteers with Tenantspin and FACT in Liverpool have been working on a new project about the infamous Bold Street , one of Liverpool’s busiest shopping streets. As well as doing some archive research, looking at old newspapers and old shop directories to get a feel for the history of the street Laura Yates and John McGuirk have been interviewing shop owners, passers by and buskers who frequent today’s Bold Street. Check out their blog and their flickr photo pool.

Bold Street c. 1958 Photograph credit to Liverpool Record Office

During the winter of 2006 and the summer of 2008 I have been conducting full life histories with people in Coventry and Liverpool about their experiences of living and working in these cities in the immediate postwar period, a time when both cities were trying to recover from severe bomb damage as well as cope with distinct economic and social change. It is also time that is commonly labelled as period of austerity and then affluence. As the interviews were full life histories what we tried to do was include the narrators’ experiences of the later twentieth century as the seventies and eighties are often characterised as a period of discontent for many. What resulted has been the creation of a wonderful collection of memories of past and present communities, people and places in two cities that have witnessed changing fortunes throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

At the moment I am working with the narrators, their recordings and transcripts to ensure they are happy with the content. This is an important task as it ensures that the people I have interviewed are included in the process of collection and dissemination. This site is one way we hope to include and involve those people we have interviewed as they see their own words, experiences and memories contributing to new discussions about how we think about the working class not just in the postwar period but also in today’s changing society.

The photograph above was taken by Harry Ainscough in Springfield Road in Liverpool c. 1964. Ainscough, who lived in Sheffield in the 1960s, was captivated by Liverpool and the changing nature of the inner-city during this period. He would travel regularly from Sheffield to walk around Liverpool and record the city life. The focus in this picture is a group of young people congregated outside what looks like some sort of community building with large swing doors to the left of the image. Girls as well as boys are mingling outside and resting on the wall. The girl sitting on the wall is wearing a mini-skirt while one of the lads sports a quiff. The others are also dressed well. This image evokes a sense of youthful play in the neighbourhood and community as people meet to chat and socialise in the local vicinity.

Hello and welcome to Voices of Postwar England. This blog is a space which we are creating in order to showcase the life history of working-class people in Liverpool and Coventry since 1945.