The following selection of images accompanied a small photographic exhibition of postwar life in Coventry and Liverpool. These images evoke a sense of home life and different views of postwar council housing. Click on the image to see a larger picture. If you can add information about the housing estates in Coventry that would be great!
Oral history interviewee Barbara Rainford (standing) Lee Park Liverpool, c.1970
Oral history interviewee John McGuirk's family in their backyard Bootle Liverpool, c.1965
Oral history narrators John McGuirk and Dolly Lloyd
In a cavernous cellar, with radical undertones, off a bustling Liverpool street earlier this week a group of Coventrians and Liverpudlians met to celebrate their postwar histories and memories.
It was with great pleasure that Selina Todd and myself welcomed everyone to the News From Nowhere radical bookshop to celebrate the completion of the oral history projects, Coventry and Liverpool Lives, following two years of interviewing in both cities: twenty-two people interviewed; thousands of words spoken and a wealth of memories sparked. As the oral historian on this project I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting everyone involved and it was a great privilege to be invited to listen to everyone’s personal life histories.
People have lots of questions when you approach them to take part in an oral history project:”Why do you want to speak to me? What can I tell you? What will you ask me? What is it going to be used for? Who else are you talking to?” And as the interviewing is underway people often ask “What have the other interviewees said?”
These questions are important. The key to being an oral historian is that you must answer these questions honestly and provide as much information as possible to put the narrator at ease. At the same time you must encourage and create a comfortable atmosphere for the narrator to continue to tell the story they want to tell. Although the oral historian is the person with the questions, the person who turns the recorder on and makes sure it is working, the person who is most important is the narrator. Without the oral history narrators’ enthusiasm, time and memories this project would not have been the success it is. The collection is a rich source of material which will be a valuable resource for future researchers. At the Liverpool gathering answers to these questions will hopefully have become more apparent. The interviewees were able to meet each other and through this website they can finally hear segments of what the other narrators said.
Together this collection contributes significantly to our understanding and knowledge of post-war everyday life. It fills a gap in sources of the period by focusing on Coventry and Liverpool, two cities that were integral to British post-war reconstruction. Historians’ attention is shifting from the London centric image of the swinging sixties to consider more regional and local experiences. This collection will make a significant contribution to this new direction in British history. As a collective archive they cover people’s experiences of growing up, working, married and later life from the 1920s, through the 1980s to the time of interviewing in 2008.
Although a collective experience of a period or event is crucial what is important about this collection of oral histories is that they are full individual life histories. No two life histories are the same. Each is unique. Personal accounts and memories of often not spoken about topics are detailed. You may have lived on a street with fifteen other families and some of those families may have been related to you but your memories of the support networks, family get togethers, births and deaths belong to you and are shaped by your perspective of the events. Well told stories sit alongside those that had been forgotten and are slowly pieced back together.
This collection is a rich resource. Thank you to all oral history narrators for your time, enthusiasm, encouragement and memories.
BBC Radio 4’s Archive Hour on Saturday 30th presented a programme on Liverpool’s turbulent social and cultural history throughout the twentieth century, Liverpool: Sinner and Saint. Throughout the programme archived sources including folk songs written and performed by Liverpudlians about the Toxteth riots of the early eighties can be heard alongside people’s memories and feelings about being moved from the inner city to the outer lying estates such as Huyton. The current debate around culture and its uses and how Liverpool has tried to ensure Liverpool 08’s success will continue to deliver cultural engagement after the affair are discussed throughout. The programme will be available to listen to again on the BBC Radio 4 website at the above link for another couple of days.
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.
Bold Street c1958 image courtesy of Liverpool Record Office
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.
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 website focuses on the history of the working class in England since 1945. In particular, it showcases the life history of working-class people in Liverpool and Coventry since 1945. As it grows, we’ll include links and material of interest to people wanting to research their family history, labour history or social history. Explore the site to learn more about life in England in the 1950s and 1960s and how it compares with today.
The copyright in all of the interviews featured here, both in audio and transcript form, rests with either the University of Manchester or the interviewees. The interviews or extracts from them are not to be reproduced without the permission of Selina Todd or Hilary Young. By moving into the site you are accepting this condition.
We would like to thank the interviewees for their time and their memories.
Posted by voicesofpostwarengland
Posted by voicesofpostwarengland
Posted by voicesofpostwarengland
