School of History, Classics & Archaeology

ORAL HISTORY UNIT & COLLECTIVE ANNUAL REPORT 2019/20

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My engagement with oral history in India began as an attempt to create an archive of memories and practices that had never entered official records. When I began that journey, I had not realised the multiple challenges inherent in this mode of resource creation. My training in history had taught me to read documents that could not speak back, it had not taught me to listen to living voices which could challenge and question my expertise. My encounters with scientists, artists, administrators, artisans and folk practitioners told me that I could enter this field only as a learner curious about the lives of others and record the experiences they had had. Oral history is a resource that makes new demands on historical research and presents challenges to historical expertise.

It is an honour to write this Foreword specially because the Oral History Unit and Collective at Newcastle University has been undertaking new historical research and working on the creation of new resources. This OHUC report offers us a framework within which such new historical research can be undertaken.

Oral history, as most practitioners will assert, is interdisciplinary in nature and calls for partnerships across disciplines. OHUC’s report amply demonstrates this collaborative aspect of oral history. This young unit has successfully drawn in disciplines as diverse as medicine, social gerontology, law, English, agriculture, heritage, landscape, creative arts, and social and physical geography. Such a dynamic engagement has enabled participatory research which in the future will lead to a deeper and layered understanding of the past. OHUC has not confined itself to research within the university, it has attempted, ambitiously, to work with the community through its research on foodbanks, deindustrialisation, the Roma community and on place-based memory to mention only a few. All these projects will reshape policy at the community

level in a major way. The establishment of an oral history archive by this Unit will also ensure the future use of resources housed here.

The research of this unique Unit reflects in the teaching modules it has designed for the university and its network. I have no doubt that in a few years, this Unit will take the lead in creating a research-based training module that can be replicated by other university and community centres in the UK and beyond.

While OHUC has been fulfilling its civic and regional responsibilities, the Unit has nurtured an international focus by procuring external funding for the “Living Deltas Research Hub”. This project brings together a network of international and interdisciplinary scientists and social scientists across four continents to record and study memories of delta dwellers about environmental change. Projects like this have the potential of galvanising research communities across the globe to engage in dialogue and open discussions.

The work of OHUC holds out the promise of a fresh understanding of history. For it is when we listen to the diverse voices of experience that we are able to comprehend the human dimensions of the past and actively reshape our common future.

Professor Indira ChowdhuryCentre for Public History Srishti-Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, India

Foreword A Word from one of our Critical Friends

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Contents Overview 4

Externally Funded Projects 2019/20 6

External Collaborative Projects 9

Research Investment Fund Projects 11

Teaching and Supervision 12

Collaboration and Engagement 14

Seminars and Events 16

Introducing the Team 18

Acknowledgements 24

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Leading the Oral History Unit and Collective (OHUC) in the first two years of its existence has been a privilege. The opportunity to conduct research with an oral history team is rare, given that we so often operate as isolated practitioners. OHUC has created an intellectually exciting space that demonstrates the best our emerging discipline has to offer.

This report covers the second of three years of support from Newcastle University’s Research Investment Fund (RIF). Unit staff have continued to consolidate and build a network of oral historians within the University and the region and have contributed to new collaborative networks, including two Newcastle University Centres of Research Excellence (NUCoREs) as well as Newcastle University’s Humanities Research Institute. Newcastle University’s commitment to interdisciplinarity provides important opportunities for OHUC, and we have especially enjoyed working with colleagues from across our home institution in disciplines that include medicine, social gerontology, law, English, agriculture, heritage, landscape, creative arts, and social and physical geography. This engagement has ranged from advising on aspects of oral history to grant applications and collaborating on interdisciplinary funded research. Significantly, Unit staff are less frequently sought out to contribute to existing projects and increasingly asked to engage in mutually rewarding ventures that begin at the research design stage.

Our collaborations are producing research that matters. We are a part of the University’s largest multi-project research hub funded by the UKRI GCRF, Living Deltas, addressing the global challenge of climate change. With more than fifty co-investigators researching

Overview 2019/20: Another year of research that matters

in three countries, this remains the most significant of our funded projects. Closer to home, we have developed a pioneering participative research partnership engaging with one of the UK’s key policy challenges: food poverty. We have also played a part in developing a new national network around deindustrialisation and piloted original ways of using oral history in post-disaster memory. In doing all the above, we have generated new income streams and identified further research and collaborative possibilities.

Having been split over two sites, the core Unit was this year relocated to the Armstrong Building within the School of History, Classics and Archaeology. Bringing the Unit together in this way means we have developed ‘laboratory’ space for small group discussion and training provision. The new space is home to our three RIF-supported Research Associates who have

Above: Graham Smith and John Kilpatrick (left) during an interview with the Swansnappers photographers;

5had time and resources to create new funding bids—including undertaking pre-bid pilot projects—as well as developing their careers.

University-wide activities can be held in the new location, as well as providing a facility for our four voluntary Associate Researchers and the community interest companies, schools and projects with which they are working. External partnerships have been developed across different sectors including engineering, arts, heritage and the voluntary sector with organisations that include Northern Cultural Projects, West End Foodbank, the Common Room of the North, Live Theatre and the London-based Roma Support Group.

Not every project will attract external funding at the first attempt. Our Thousand Family Oral History and METRO2020 projects (see 2018 report) will be rewritten for resubmission to other funders with the support of our external and internal partners. Along with three other funding applications, these are likely to form a significant part of our activities in 2020. I look forward to working with the brilliant HCA School Finance Officers and would like to thank them and Lorraine Smith, our Faculty Research Funding Manager, for all their support over the last year.

In terms of impact, Foodbank Histories continues to be our demonstration study of how oral history can make changes while meeting our civic and regional responsibilities, especially in relation to inequalities. Collaboration with the Newcastle West End Foodbank has been exemplary. Last year we reported the acknowledgement of the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty in the project’s interviews. This year has seen Henry Dimbleby, leader of a government review that will establish a National Food Strategy in 2020, expressing an interest in the

Photos, from left: Graham launches the We Made Ships website: volunteers and researcher team at the launch of the Canny Cooks recipe book; Professor Helen Berry (standing) introduces our first Collective book launch; relaxing with colleagues on the beach at Swansea after the Oral History Society Conference, July 2019.

project’s outputs. We see this work extending and further enriching the impact case study that originated in Matt Perry’s intergenerational historical justice work in Jarrow.

Between now and the end of the currently funded phase in early 2021, we will continue to explore different ways of collaborative working that will further develop the wider Oral History Collective. We will also continue to develop our place as a Unit within the University. This will include expanding our teaching portfolio, including postgraduate taught and by research. We will build on existing undergraduate modules by Sarah Campbell and Ben Houston as well as our experience in 2019 of hosting an undergraduate summer scholarship and a funded postgraduate placement.

We have also made progress on establishing an oral history archive at Newcastle. Led by Sue Bradley, we have established a series of joint procedures and protocols with colleagues in the University Library’s Special Collections. Special thanks are due to Ian Johnson, Head of Special Collections and Archives.

OHUC throughout 2020 will continue to support oral history at Newcastle and in the wider region, and engage in world leading, collaborative oral history research.

Professor Graham SmithNewcastle University, UK

"The Oral History Unit and Collective has created an intellectually exciting space that demonstrates the best our emerging discipline has to offer."

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Living DeltasFunding Body: United Kingdom Research & Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research FundPrinciple Investigator (PI) Andy Large, Co-Investigator (CI) (Oral History) Graham Smith, CI (History) Helen Berry2019 – 2024

Our largest externally funded initiative to date sits within the Living Deltas Research Hub. The Hub is a major international and interdisciplinary network of scientists, social scientists and humanities scholars located on four continents from global 'South' and 'North'. Over the last year we have completed the first phase of establishing networks, joint protocols, study sites and recruiting research associates. In the next two years, research will be conducted in the Mekong and Red River deltas (Vietnam) and in the Ganges-Brahmaputra- Meghna mega-delta (Bangladesh and India).

These deltas are home to 250 million people. Their socio-ecological security is at risk from environmental change. While others in the Hub are co-creating new knowledge, as oral historians we are engaging with communities to uncover existing, every day and historical understandings of natural/cultural heritage. Along with other colleagues, we will be working with vulnerable groups in each delta context, enabling their inclusion in Hub activities.

While oral historians have had a long involvement with environmental research, we think this is the first time they have been taken part in such a large investigative enterprise. The Unit is represented in the Hub by Siobhan Warrington, newly appointed Senior Research Associate, who will be working with

Externally Funded Projects 2019/20

Below: The first annual Living Deltas Annual Conference, Kolkata, 2020

Graham Smith. Siobhan, who had previously been involved in Living Deltas as a development oral history consultant, brings a wealth of experience in this field.

In undertaking the Living Deltas research, we recognise the barriers to combat environmental change and the agency within delta communities to shape solutions, both in the present and as past guardians of the vitality of delta ecosystems. We are especially interested not only in the memories and histories of the environment, but also in the transmission of knowledge between generations and how people can seek to make the changes that they want. Within our work package, we will be complementing the work of colleagues whose focus will be on culture and youth.

In terms of national scale benefit, the Hub will directly input into the work of policy makers and monitors. In developing a new delta-sensitive indicator framework, the Hub will improve the quality of national indicator sets and awareness of monitoring gaps. Here we hope to introduce qualitative data to the scientific statistics and amplify the voices of delta dwellers. The recalled and subjective experiences of delta dwellers will make a significant addition to attitudinal materials collected by development studies and physical science data collected by colleagues from engineering and physical geography. This work will enable the voices and memories of delta dwellers to be represented in policy discussions that will shape the future of our planet.

It is also part of Graham's remit to promote and support data sharing and data reuse so that the Hub community can better understand how delta populations can achieve delta sustainability. This draws directly on oral historians’ knowledge and practice in archiving and data reuse. More at https://www.livingdeltas.org

The GCRF Living Deltas Hub aims to have lasting impact through its contribution to:

1) sustainable, equitable livelihoods for delta dwellers in resilient communities

2) sustainable management of ecosystems and landscapes

3) stronger monitoring for sustainable development

4) better policies for delta sustainable development.

7Foodbank Histories

Funding Body: UKRI Quality-related Research Strategic Priorities Fund (QR- SPF) 2020; Newcastle University Social Justice Fund 2019; Research Investment Fund (RIF) 2018-19PI Dr Alison Atkinson-Phillips, Community Partners (CPs) Northern Cultural Projects and Newcastle West End Foodbank2018-2020

In January 2020 we received funding from the UKRI Quality-related Research Strategic Priorities Fund (QR-SPF) for a further three months of Foodbank Histories work. Foodbank Histories is a three-way collaboration between the Oral History Unit & Collective, Northern Cultural Projects (NCP) and Newcastle West End Foodbank (NWEF). The work has focused on deepening our understanding of people’s experience of and strategies for living with food poverty over time, and aims to produce practical and policy-relevant outputs.

In 2019, we received funding from Newcastle University’s Social Justice Fund for a short-term placement for (then) PhD student Jack Hepworth (see p 12) and a series of creative workshops. These workshops, which were led by Silvie Fisch in her role as director of Northern Cultural Projects and, with a team of historical interpreters, used a ‘heritage’ food experience to facilitate conversations about food security with clients and volunteers. In May 2019, materials generated from these workshops were published as Canny Cooks, a small cookbook that included some of the recipes and stories of Foodbank clients, which was launched as part of Newcastle University’s external Vision day. Co-produced by foodbank clients, Canny Cooks challenges prevailing myths about foodbank users’ lack of knowledge and skills to prepare food.

A thank you event and feedback workshop offered an opportunity to share preliminary findings with participants. Incorporating this feedback, the Foodbank Histories Report was delivered to the Trustees. Report recommendations have been incorporated into the Newcastle West End Foodbank’s Strategic Plan for 2019-2021. A co-written journal article has also been

published under the title “’I was not aware of the hardship’: Foodbank Histories from North-East England”, Public History Review vol 26, 2019.

In the last year, the team have also raised wider public awareness, including as invited speakers at local history group meetings and most recently at one of Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema’s ‘Zero Hour’ programme events that explored the future of work.

Another exciting development is our relationship with Live Youth Theatre. A twelve-minute performance called ‘Fed Up’ was created from research into food poverty, first shown as a contribution to ‘City of Dreams’, a

ten-year project aiming to improve the life chances of children and young people in Newcastle and Gateshead. With support from Newcastle University’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the piece was taken into the streets of Newcastle. A sound installation using interview excerpts was produced by Matthew Tuckey and introduced the performance.

One of Live Youth Theatre’s monologues touches on the relevance of historical research for today’s society. “The past. You remember the past? You remember how we learned from it, or how we’re forced to repeat it?” Food poverty has a past. We will continue to study foodbank use in its historical and social context, to build a bridge from the past, along a long, rocky road, to a future where memories of food poverty will have become minor matters in people’s personal histories.

Silvie Fisch and Alison Atkinson-Phillips (right) share their research findings and the Canny Cooks recipe book with Henry Dimbleby (left), who is leading the National Food Strategy review for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

“The past. You remember the past? You remember how we learned from it, or how we’re forced to repeat it?”

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We Made Ships Public History Website

Funding Body: Catherine Cookson Foundation PI: Alison Atkinson-Phillips; CI: Rosie Bush 2018-20

The We Made Ships (www.wemadeships.co.uk) educational public history website went live in June 2019. In keeping with the shipbuilding tradition, it was officially launched with a bottle of champagne (ok, Bucks Fizz) – and the click of a mouse — by Neil Wilton, the son of a former ship broker who made headlines as a baby when he co-launched a ship from Clelands Shipbuilding Company with his mother, Kit. His story is told on the site.

The site was written by Dr Alison Atkinson-Phillips and Rosie Bush, with web design by Invent Partners, and based on research for the Work and After research theme. It gives an overview of the history of shipbuilding in the North East, including a wide range of resources, photographs, videos and oral histories. Rosie, who is a high school teacher, has written four secondary school resource packs for Geography, History, Drama and English which have been shared with schools across the region.

Deindustrialisation, Heritage and Memory Network

Funding Body: British Academy, Rising Star Engagement Award PI Andy Clark2018–2019

Neil Winton (above) and Rosie Bush (below) at the launch of the We Made Ships website, www.wemadeships.co.uk.

The Deindustrialisation, Heritage and Memory Network aimed to promote closer collaboration among those interested in the multiple impacts of manufacturing decline across Britain. Deindustrialisation studies as an area of research has grown extensively in the last decade, involving scholars from numerous disciplines, interested in multiple locales.

Throughout 2018 and 2019, Andy Clark organised three workshops in Glasgow, Newcastle and Kent through his British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award, aiming to foster closer collaboration among scholars, community organisations and heritage groups. Representatives from seventeen universities and nine local heritage groups participated in the workshops.

A follow-on panel at the international Working Class Studies Association Conference in September, chaired by Andy, involved contributions from four members of the network: Paul Barnsley (PCS Union & University of Wolverhampton), Emma Copestake (University of Liverpool), Matt Beebee (University of Essex) and Emily Tench (Programme and Engagement Officer, Common Room of the Great North).

Members of the Elvington and Eythorne Heritage Group and the Betteshanger Social Welfare Scheme participate in the final DHM workshop in Kent, April 2019.

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External Collaborative ProjectsTrust New Art and the Archive Pilot

Newcastle University Faculty Bid Preparation FundConsultancy Alison Atkinson Phillips for Vee Pollock, Rebecca Farley

Alison Atkinson-Phillips is collaborating with Rebecca Farley and Vee Pollock from the School of Arts and Cultures and with the National Trust on pilot research to develop a new kind of archive for site-specific, temporary artworks.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of Trust New Art, the National Trust’s programme of contemporary arts. Across this period the National Trust has made a significant contribution to the field of commissioning temporary site-specific art in heritage spaces, working with over 300 artists at over 100 National Trust sites. However, documentation of these works has relied on visual records of the finished projects and has not resulted in an archive of process or practice.

Alison is conducting oral history interviews with creative practitioners and National Trust staff that will contribute to an archival practice and to answer questions about the development and contribution of heritage-based public artworks and practices. The research team are also being supported by the Digital Institute to explore creative ways of storing and presenting the archive for the future.

Below: Cinzia Hardy from the November Club talks about their site-specific performance work at Wallington Hall.

Lockerbie disaster oral history project

Funding Body: British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research GrantJoint PIs Dr Andy Clark and Dr Colin Atkinson2019-20

Andy Clark is working with Colin Atkinson, criminologist and counter-terrorism expert at the University of the West of Scotland on an oral history of the Lockerbie Disaster, 1988,. This funded project seeks to investigate the memories and narratives of first responders, primarily police officers and mountain rescue volunteers. Since January 2019, Andy and Colin have interviewed twelve respondents who were directly involved in the aftermath of the biggest mass murder in Scottish criminal history. The interviews have been recorded over multiple sessions, allowing for an exploration of the disaster, its physical and legal impacts, and the memories of participants thirty years after the event.

The data is currently being analysed for academic presentation and publication, placing the narratives within an examination of the recollection of traumatic experiences and the impact of the disaster on policing and counter-terror in Britain.

10The UNITE History Project 1920-2019

Funding Body: UNITE Research by Ally KeaneJanuary 2019 – January 2020

UNITE members are currently undertaking oral history research to further explore their union’s history. The Oral History Unit and Collective (OHUC) at Newcastle University is assisting the union’s North East, Yorkshire and Humberside Region members in their contribution to this project. As a result of this collaboration, Andy Pearson, the Regional Education Officer for the area, has employed one of our History, Classics and Archaeology graduates, Ally Keane, whose studies included a module in reusing oral history.

Here Ally reports:

“I’ve been undertaking oral history research exploring the Union’s history for their upcoming books. The first book was focusing on the period 1920-1931, which has now been completed. I managed to find oral history recordings of memories of the General Strike of 1926 and the impact of the Great Depression in the North East, in the immediate years following the Wall Street Crash. Although these memories were incredibly humbling at some points, I feel privileged to be able to access individuals’ narratives which are now on the edges of living memory..

"Work has started on the second book, concentrating on the period 1931-1945. I’m looking forward to finding audio recordings for this period, as

Roma Stories

Funding Body: Heritage Lottery Fund PI: Tania Gessi, Consultant: Graham Smith2015-2019

Graham Smith has worked as a consultant on this important community oral history project, led by the London-based Roma Support Group. A collection of unique recordings of older and younger members of the Roma community have been completed and are now housed at London Metropolitan Archives. A number of exhibitions were held in the capital including one at The Wiener Library.

For more see: https://www.romasupportgroup.org.uk/roma-stories-roma-oral-history-project.html

Left: Poster outside the Wiener Library, London, November, 2019: 'Forgotten Victims: The Nazi Genocide of the Roma and Sinti'.

it will allow me to bring female trade union members into UNITE’s history and touch on issues which the Transport and General Workers’ Union was facing, such as the rank-and-file movements."

More at: https://www.theunitehistoryproject.org/

Above: cover of the latest Unite the Union history book,.

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Work and after in sound and vision

Pilot study led by Matt Perry and Alison Atkinson-PhillipsGrant submission target 2020

In 2018 we reported on this pilot project, which focusses on the social history of the shipbuilding industry and its loss in the North East region. In 2019, we hosted Bob Davis (company director) and Martin Spence (former producer), two original members of Trade Films, whose work formed the basis of the original North East Film Archive (NEFA). Two of the original Trade Films productions were commissioned by Tyne & Wear County Council in 1984 as part of the Save our Shipyards Campaign. Bob Davis accompanied Alison Atkinson-Phillips on a visit to NEFA where he provided important insights into Trade’s collection.

Alison is currently collaborating with Dr Matt Perry (Reader in Labour History), academic colleagues from cognitive psychology, film, media studies and digital humanities, and community-based oral history colleagues on an AHRC grant application.

Research Investment Fund (RIF) Projects, Newcastle University, 2018-2021

A Place Like This: using oral history to inform planning policy

Pilot study led by Paul Cowie, Sue Bradley and Annie TindleyGrant submission target 2020

The 1951 Local Development Plan for County Durham categorised the county’s settlements on a scale of A to D. The Category A settlements were considered vibrant and growing, while those in Category D were thought to be unsustainable: the plan was to re-house their residents and demolish the buildings. After a grass-roots fight-back, many villages survived. The policy was reversed in the late 1970s but had long-term social and economic consequences for the region.

Thanks to a Catherine Cookson grant awarded in 2019, Sue Bradley (OHU) is working with Paul Cowie (Centre for Rural Economy, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences), who brings expertise in planning policy and community development, and Anne Tindley (HCA), founder and first director of the Centre for Scotland’s Land Futures, to research place-based memories in former Category D villages, and to consider the role such memories can play in better planning for the future. Project partners include: Northern Heartlands (HLF and ACE-funded Great Place scheme); playwright Christina Castling; producer, Carole Wears; and residents of County Durham.

We are delighted that PhD candidate Katherine Emmerson-Waugh (HCA), has been awarded a Northern Bridge placement hosted by Northern Heartlands to work with the team. Katherine is conducting archival research that will inform public debates with the project team at performances of ‘A Way Home’, Christina Castling’s new play about the Category D villages, which will tour the North East.

Apprenticeships and Sigmund Pumps

Pilot study led by Andy Clark with additional funding from the Common Room of the NorthDecember 2019–October 2020

In 2018, Andy Clark led a pilot study investigating the apprenticeship scheme at the Sigmund Pumps factory in Gateshead during the Second World War. Andy has since developed a new oral history project with the Common Room of the Great North (formerly the Newcastle Mining Institute). The study looks at the past, present and future of engineering in the North East of England. Interviews with current engineers, trainers and local businesses will investigate and assess the changing nature of engineering. This will add to the new oral history archive at the Common Room and contribute to a public exhibition when the building reopens in 2021.

Above: The library at the Common Room of the North.

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Funded PhD Studentship

Collaborative Doctoral Award, Northern Bridge, AHRC Oral History’s Design: A creative collaboration Supervisory Team: Graham Smith, Mark Bailey (Design, Northumbria) and Jo Moody and Emma Thomas (National Trust)2021-2025

The supervisory team have recruited Hannah Louwerse who has a background in both oral history and design, to this Collaborative Doctoral Award. Beginning in January 2020, Hannah will address oral history’s ‘deep dark secret’ that its use as an active collection tool outstrips its use and secondary use as evidence in historical interpretation. The project draws on new developments in oral history reuse theory and practice, in combination with design science, to explore how heritage site visitors could become active curators and historians by engaging with an existing oral history on-site archive, and in turn how new data could be generated to shape future collecting. The PhD will generate new knowledge in understanding and addressing Trust visitors’ active engagement in interpreting the past through existing oral histories.

The CDA was a result of Graham Smith working with National Trust staff at Seaton Delaval Hall and MA Design students from Northumbria University.

PhD placement with the Oral History Unit

Social Justice Fund; Foodbank Histories Jack Hepworth supervised by Alison Atkinson-Phillips2019

In February and March 2019, thanks to the university’s Social Justice Fund, Jack Hepwork completed a short-term placement in the Oral History Unit with the Foodbank Histories project. Jack writes:

“Having previously volunteered with Foodbank Histories for eight months with my colleagues Alison Atkinson-Phillips and Silvie Fisch, I arrived with a working knowledge of the project, but those five weeks taught me a lot.

"I transcribed approximately 500 minutes of interviews, designed copyright and re-use agreements (enabling licensed interview material to contribute to future research), liaised with interviewees, and drafted a report for the Newcastle West End Foodbank trustees including recommendations for the foodbank. I also presented initial findings from the report at a workshop, where interviewees fed back. Over those five weeks, I thrived on working as part of a team – a welcome departure from the potentially isolating nature of doctoral study. I developed valuable communication and organisation skills and gained tremendous experience of the mechanics of a multi-partner project. By nature of the project’s focus, amplifying issues which pervade contemporary Britain, the process was also, by turns, saddening and infuriating.”

Undergraduate placement with the Oral History Unit

University Vacation Scholarship George Selwyn-Sharpe supervised by Graham Smith2019.

Second-year History student George Selwyn-Sharpe was awarded a two-month summer research grant to undertake a project which involved interviewing nine recovering alcoholics and recording, transcribing and archiving their experiences of mental health and addiction treatment services in the North East from the 1960s onwards. The interviews were based on a semi-structed thematic framework which was in part put together by the members of OHUC. These consisted of themes such as childhood, schooling, addiction, mental health, Alcoholics Anonymous, recovery, ageing and the self.

Teaching and Supervision

Word cloud from George Selwyn-Sharpe's summer reseach project interviews..

13George writes:

“I learnt how to plan and carry out an academic project, as well as how to summarise and submit an academic poster detailing methodology, theory, conclusions and results. I also developed a better understanding of oral history. Oral history complemented my interest in ‘new’ social history as well as offering an interdisciplinary approach that shares methods from other social sciences. The project was about democratising history and working towards empowering those who are often silenced and forgotten by history.

“As I reflect n early s ix m onths l ater, I r ecognise that the project impacted on me on a personal level... History is in part about empathising with historical actors. These living sources and the relationships built in the interview and after left me feeling humbled, motivated, inspired and empowered. I also have no doubt the skills developed through research, project-planning and delivery will continue to be felt in my professional and personal life.”

Postgraduate Short Course in Oral History

Northern Bridge Consortium, AHRCFor the second year running Graham Smith, on

behalf of the Unit, and Michelle Winslow of Sheffield University ran a short course for PhD candidates from Newcastle, Belfast, Durham, York and Sheffield. This popular three-day course provides students with an intermediate understanding of oral history theories and methods.

Undergraduate Teaching

Labour History and Oral History undergraduate module BA History

A precursor to the Oral History Unit, the second-year history module in Oral History and Memory was developed by Dr Sarah Campbell and Dr Matt Perry. This year, Research Associates Alison Atkinson-Phillips and Andy Clark took over teaching the module, along with HCA colleague and Oral History Collective member Ben Houston. The module introduces students to the theory and practice of oral history, as well as diving into a particular subject theme — this year, the history of deindustrialisation in the North East. Students undertake group work to research, conduct and transcribe an oral

history interview, present their findings to the class, and are asked to think about what kinds of public history projects could be developed from these interviews.

Some of the student interviews recorded in 2019 and in previous years relate to North East shipbuilding, and will be added to the We Made Ships website (www.wemadeships.co.uk).

Research Skills module for joint English-History

Along with teaching on HIS2219, Ben Houston has successfully leveraged oral history teaching for the last few years on SELL2218—this is the research skills module for the joint English—History degree programme. Co-taught with Rosalind Haslett, SELL’s specialist in dramatic literature, the module focuses on the African American experience in Pittsburgh. Drawing from famed Black playwright August Wilson, who rooted most of his plays in his hometown Pittsburgh, and Ben's oral history archive documenting Black lives in Pittsburgh, students wrote original research essays drawing from those sources. The module was informed by Ben's recent research, which resulted in 2017 in an international exhibition that matched historic photos with oral history excerpts. An article sketching out the thinking behind that exhibition’s design has published by The Public Historian (2020): 'Not as It Is Written: Blending Oral Histories and Historic Photographs in a Civil Rights Exhibition'.

Oral History re-use module for BA HistoryProfessor Graham Smith designed and continues to deliver Talking Cures and Troubles: An Oral History of Health and Medicine in Britain, c. 1948-2000. The module explores the way health professionals and patients have remembered the history of medicine and health care under the NHS. It also equips students with the skills to identify and evaluate relevant oral history sources, examine them as oral sources and sources of memory, and synthesise with specific and general historiographies of medicine and methods. The module provides the skills necessary for reusing a challenging source and should be of interest to all finalists considering (re)using oral history sources in their final dissertation.

Oral History third-year dissertations As oral history is established as an area of expertise at Newcastle University, students are increasingly confident to embrace oral history methods for their third-year dissertation. Graham Smith and other members of the Collective, including Alejandro Quiroga, Ben Houston, Jack Hepworth, Matt Perry and Sarah Campbell, supervised a wide range of exciting undergraduate research projects in 2019/20.

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The Lug and @NCL_oral history The Lug is the name of our blog, and the online

space where we share news of events, work in progress reports and reflections on oral history theory and practice. Our Twitter account, @NCL_oralhistory is used to report live on events and to build connections with a growing following of oral and community historians locally, nationally and internationally. One of our most controversial blog posts this year was Andy Clark’s reflection on the issue of casualisation and precarity in the field of oral history, which generated much discussion on social media and in person.

Human Rights and Social Justice Forum In March 2019, Alison Atkinson-Phillips hosted

a workshop titled Memory, Ritual and Symbolic Reparations: Challenges and Opportunities for Historical Justice and Human Rights. The event, co-sponsored by the Human Rights and Social Justice Forum and the Conflict & Revolutions Research Group (HCA), brought together scholars engaged in difficult pasts and productive ways of dealing with the past in the present. Keynote speaker was Jill Strauss, co-editor of Slavery’s Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation (Rutgers University Press 2019) and panel participants included Ulrike Capdepón, University of Konstanz; Stefanie Kappler, Durham University; and Sarah Campbell, Newcastle University/Oral History Collective. Professor Peter Hopkins, Dean of Social Justice, participated in a panel discussion on historical justice in research-led teaching.

Collaboration & EngagementFriday Monthly Drop-In

Our monthly drop-ins (first Friday, 12-1pm) are open to anyone who is working, or planning to work, with oral history. They provide an informal forum for sharing ideas, information and cake, for creating partnerships, and keeping the Oral History Unit connected to oral history activity in the region and beyond. This year we have welcomed PhD researchers, senior academics, members of voluntary organisations, and heritage sector professionals. As academics, we gain from this exchange.

Our first guests of 2020 were Jane Mann, Sally Brewis and Harry Henderson from Out of Town (OOT), a National Lottery Heritage-funded project that is based at the Bailiffgate Museum in Alnwick and celebrates the rural heritage of Coquetdale: http://ootmuseum.co.uk/

Jane wrote later:

“One of our team attended the public session of the OHS regional networkers’ conference hosted by the University’s oral history unit in 2018. He came back inspired and with useful information about what can make a project work in practice, which we incorporated into what became a successful bid. One year into our project, we came to a drop-in and OHU staff helped us think through how best to proceed with two years to go. The value, to non professionals, of access to academics is huge. They have a knowledge of what is going on regionally, nationally and internationally. They can share good practice but, most importantly, ask sharp questions face to face, which then allows us to help ourselves. We plan to keep in touch with the team by attending the drop ins and regional conferences.”

Oral History Reading Group The monthly reading group ran very successfully

throughout 2019, with a short break in the winter. Readings covered queer theory, the modern US trend of capturing storytelling, sensory memories, the limits of memory, and the role of the media in relation to oral history. Two of our favourites came from Professor Paula Hamilton, our visiting lecturer in March 2019.

In 2020 we plan to study readings on some big topics such as oral history and medicine, trauma memory, contested history, animals and oral history, and social change. Resuming every third Tuesday during Spring term, we meet in the 5pm in the Oral history Hub.

15Labour and Society: Factory Occupation Labour History Review Following a 2018 workshop organised by Andy Clark on the history of the workplace occupation in 20th century Britain, participants agreed to collaborate on a special issue journal to highlight this emergent area of research. In 2020 Labour History Review agreed to publish the issue following their blind peer review process. The issue is edited by Andy and features contributions from Alan Tuckman, Valerie Wright and Ewan Gibbs, and Andy's analysis of female-led factory occupations in Scotland during the early 1980s. The special issue will be published in early 2021.

Cultures of Memory Together with colleagues from the School of Arts &

Cultures and the Institute for Ageing, Alison Atkinson-Phillips is co-convenor of the Cultures of Memory Faculty Research Group. During the 2018/2019 academic year, the CofM facilitated a series of workshop that explored interdisciplinary approaches to the language and methods of memory. Speakers from the Oral History Collective included Alison Atkinson-Phillips, Andy Clark and Matt Perry. In October 2019, CofM collaborated with the Broadcast Bartenders in a day-long series of conversations about memory that involved a number of Oral History Collective members. Recordings from the day can be accessed at https://research.ncl.ac.uk/culturesofmemory/broadcast-bartender/.

Witches at NightIn May 2019, Alison Atkinson-Philips participated in a creative workshop run by the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics and supported by the Newcastle University Humanities Research Institute and the Leverhulme Trust. The workshop explored creative responses to Early Modern Witch Trials including two performance sessions. Alison’s participation in this event demonstrated the relevance of oral history methodologies to a range of wider disciplines.

Zero Hours Programme at Tyneside CinemaIn November 2019, the Oral History Collective

partnered with Tyneside Cinema to develop two events as part of their programme Zero Hour: Reality and Future of Work, which ran alongside the release of Ken Loach’s new film ‘Sorry We Missed You’.

Fragile Labour interrogated the historical experience of precarious labour, screening a selection of archival footage about work and unemployment in the North

East, curated with North East Film Archive (NEFA). The discussion involved film-maker and poet Tom Pickard, NEFA’s Julie Ballands, oral historian Alison Atkinson-Phillips, and former shipyard worker and ‘Men of the Tyne’ folk singer Ted Curkin, who Alison met while researching the shipbuilding industry.

Food Poverty screened Loach’s previous film, ‘I Daniel Blake', which inspired the Foodbank Histories project. The film was preceded by a performance of Live Youth Theatre’s Fed Up, developed in collaboration with the Oral History Collective, and followed by a discussion involving Foodbank Histories collaborators from Northern Cultural Projects and Newcastle West End Foodbank, and a member of Live Youth Theatre.

Above: acting out witch trial narratives in the Witches at Night workshop, photo credit Simon Veit-Wilson. Opposite page: panel discussion at Memory, Ritual and Symbolic Reparations workshop.

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Between the living and the dead: what are the limits of remembering through oral histories? Paula Hamilton Tuesday 26 March (Annual Public Lecture)

To celebrate the first full year of the Oral History Unit & Collective, Professor Paula Hamilton presented a lecture as part of the Public Insights programme. Paula is an internationally renowned oral historian, who has published widely in oral history and memory studies and explores the links between personal and public memories. She set up Australia’s first public history programme and was for many years co-director of the Australian Centre for Public History, University of Technology Sydney, where she is now a Visiting Professor.

Paula drew upon decades of research about women working in the 20th century home as domestic servants, focusing in particular on the experience of intimate relations with men, to draw a connecting line through what is now called harassment to illegitimate births and infanticide. The lecture demonstrated the pervasiveness of ‘shame’ in shaping the historical record and considered the challenges that this poses for oral history as a methodology.

Public History Masterclass Wednesday 27 March

Following on from her public lecture, Paula Hamilton provided a masterclass exploring the connections between personal and public memories.

We continue to build a strong oral history research culture by bringing world-leading oral historians to Newcastle. We aim to invite speakers whose work engages with our priority themes, and who contribute to cutting edge thinking about oral history methodology. Most seminars are held outside of office hours, to make them as accessible as possible to participants from beyond the university.

Looking back, looking forward: Oral History and re-use Joanna Bornat Wednesday 30 January

Joanna Bornat is Emeritus Professor of Oral History at the Open University and a long-standing editor of the Oral History Journal. She explored why the many thousands of hours of archived oral history interviews are rarely used, and what we gain from re-use, suggesting that oral historians should consider this future potential as they investigate the past.

An oral historical intervention in a historiography of erasure: a case study of Japanese in Canada and memories of the postwar at the end of life Darren Aoki Wednesday 27 February

Darren Aoki is Lecturer in World History at the University of Plymouth. His paper considered how Canadian Nikkei (people of Japanese descent) that he interviewed have questioned dominant representations of the history of Japanese Canadians, and their place in Canadian history.

Oral History Collective Seminars & Events

Left: Professor Paula Hamilton giving the annual lecture at the 2019 Spring FestivalRight: Paula giving a public history masterclass the follolwing day

17

Oral History Collective book launch Matt Perry and Alison Atkinson-Phillips Tuesday 29 May

Mutinous memories: A subjective history of French military protest in 1919 (Perry, Manchester University Press 2019) and Survivor Memorials: Remembering Trauma and Loss in Contemporary Australia (Atkinson-Phillips, University of Western Australia Publishing 2019).

Our first Oral History Collective book launch was opened by Professor Helen Berry, Head of History, Classics and Archaeology. Helen paid tribute to both works, situating them in recent developments in scholarship, particularly social theory perspectives, the turn to affect, and memory studies.

Mutinous Memories explores French mutineer subjectivity during eight months of protest in 1919. Matt explained how he approached mutineer testimony as multi-layered sensory experience. Alison discussed case studies from her work, which is about the turn to commemoration of lived experiences, and elaborated its theoretical orientation, exploring ‘difficult knowledge’, historical restitution, and transitional justice.

Origin stories and intergenerational family memory Anna Green Thursday 20 June

Anna Green is a leading figure in international oral history and Associate Professor in the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. In this paper Anna explored the importance of the family in the transmission of memory, by examining the 'origin stories' evident in her current research into Pākehā (New Zealand European) intergenerational family memory (see www.familymemory.nz). Her research draws on interviews conducted over the past three years with sixty multigenerational families whose European forebears arrived in New Zealand between the 1830s and 1914.

Cabin Crew Conflict: The British Airways Dispute 2009-11 Sian Moore and Phil Taylor Wednesday 2 October (with Labour & Society Faculty Research Group)

Sian Moore and Phil Taylor presented the findings from their recent book on the 2009-2011 British Airways cabin crew dispute. Cabin Crew Conflict (Pluto, 2019) tells the strikers’ story, focusing on cabin crew responses, perceptions of events, and their lived experiences of taking industrial action in a hostile climate. Foregrounding questions of class, gender and identity, and how these were manifest in the course of the dispute, Sian & Phil highlighted the strike’s significance for contemporary employment relations in and beyond the aviation industry. Sian Moore is Professor in Employment Relations and Human Resource Management at the University of Greenwich. Phil Taylor is Professor of Work and Employment Studies at Strathclyde Business School.

Top: The joint book launch for Mutinous Memories and Survivor MemorialsRight: Professors Sian Moore and Phil Taylor present their recent book, Cabin Crew Conflict.

18

The Oral History Unit & Collective is led by Professor Graham Smith and includes a team of research associates (supported by the Newcastle University Research Investment Fund) and associate researchers who together have many years of local, national and international experience and expertise. In 2019, this core team included Dr Alison Atkinson-Phillips, Sue Bradley and Dr Andy Clark as research associates. Our experienced team of associate researchers, Rosie Bush, Silvie Fisch and Dr Kath Smith, was joined this year by labour historian and archivist Liz O’Donnell. The Unit is helping to develop the next generation of oral historians, with early-career researchers involved in the design of ground-breaking projects. Working together and with colleagues in other academic disciplines and community organisations, this team produces globally significant research while attending to regional and civic responsibilities.

The wider Collective is inclusive. It crosses disciplinary, institutional and geographical boundaries. It brings together colleagues in academic and community settings who study the past to enhance understandings of the present and conceptions of the future. Its members, who include professionals in the archives, libraries and heritage sectors, represent oral history as both an emergent academic discipline and a long-established method of making and sharing public history.

Our many Collective members range from students to experienced academics, and from volunteers just dipping their toes in the waters of oral history for the first time, to community oral historians with many years' experience.

The Collective provides a forum for knowledge exchange with a common purpose: to explore the dynamics of memory and historical narrative through theory and practice and to include those voices too often marginalised in representations of the past. Using oral history as both a method and a source in public history settings, we share the common agenda of researching memory and historical narratives through reflective practices and theories.

Finally, members of the Unit and Collective seek to use oral history as an evidential tool to inform other research and as a way of responding to societal challenges. This includes helping to shape policies on poverty, ageing, transport, crime and international development.

Oral History Unit & Collective Core Team

Professor Graham Smith

Graham Smith has worked as a public and community historian since the mid-1980s. After a period coordinating its Regional Network, he served as Chair of the Oral History Society from 2004 until 2017, when he moved to Newcastle to help establish the new Oral History Unit & Collective.

Throughout his research on the history of work, family, food, migration and medicine, Graham has explored the relation between memory and history. He has been the principal investigator on five major grants and a co-investigator on five others. Funders have included research councils, major charities and the National Health Service. His publications have appeared in humanities, social science and medical journals. Currently, he is a co-investigator on the Living Deltas Hub.

Graham’s appointment has allowed researchers from across Newcastle University and beyond to draw on his experience as an internationally recognised oral historian. By appointing and coordinating oral historians in specialist areas including development studies, public history and labour history, he has further extended the range of support and advice available to potential collaborators. In the last two years Graham has established an undergraduate module in reusing oral histories of medicine as well as making the case for a new MA in public history at Newcastle.  He is part of a team that has successfully applied for a Northern Bridge Collaborative Doctoral Award that will begin in October 2020.

19Research Associates

Dr Alison Atkinson-PhillipsAlison joined the Oral

History Unitas a researcher in January 2018. She has recently been appointed as Lecturer in Public History at Newcastle University but will remain involved in the work of OHUC. Her work crosses the boundaries of oral history, public history and memory studies: she is interested in marginalised histories; how difficult pasts are dealt with in the present; public art; and place-based memory work.

Alison's work has focussed on the theme of Work and After, exploring experiences of work and loss of work in the North East after 1945, and links this theme with her personal research expertise in memory, commemoration and historical justice. Her role involves initiating pilot research projects and developing them for larger funding applications. She is also collaborating with colleagues in the School of Arts & Cultures and the National Trust on a pilot project to develop a new kind of archive for site-specific, temporary artworks.

Beyond the Oral History Unit & Collective, Alison is a co-convenor of Newcastle University's Cultures of Memory research group and a member of Newcastle University’s Social Justice Advisory Group.

Alison's 2019 Highlight: my first book! All academic researchers are expected to publish,

and I’ve been told that it gets less exciting over time. Nonetheless, seeing my first book in all its paperback glory was a definitely a highlight of last year. Having completed my BA way back in 1997 with a major in Creative Writing, and earned my living as a writer and editor for over a decade, it has been quite a long wait!

There are two things that made this professional milestone particularly special. First, the Oral History Collective celebrated with me, organising a joint launch with my colleague Dr Matt Perry (see page 17). The event was packed with academic and community colleagues, showing what a broad and diverse community the Collective has built in such a short time.

Perhaps more importantly, the book has been read and discussed by the people for whom I wrote the book. These are the grass roots ‘memory activists’ whose work draws on the past to address injustice in the present.

I sent a copy of the book to each of the community groups who had participated in the research, but when their copy had not arrived in time for a major event, the Blackwood Reconciliation Group emailed to tell me not to worry — they had found a copy in Dymock’s, Australia’s major high street bookseller. As a public historian, knowing that my work has been published in such an accessible way makes me very happy.

Sue Bradley Sue Bradley is an

experienced oral historian with interests in both the rural environment and the cultural sector. Her focus is on ‘doing oral history’ — using speaking and listening as ways to appreciate historical experience — and trying to understand what that means. Sue works part time in the Oral History Unit. Her projects include ‘A Place Like This’, a pilot in County Durham involving the School of History, Classics and Archaeology and the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, (see page 11), and research into the part that animals and memories of sensory experiences play in oral histories. She also works in the Centre for Rural Economy (CRE) on the history team of ‘Field’, a Wellcome-funded interdisciplinary project to inform the reduction of endemic disease in British livestock farming. Sue has worked at Newcastle University since 2007 on a range of projects involving oral history research. She set up the Veterinary Lives project from CRE in 2012, and from 2014 to 2016 was based in the School of English as the oral historian on the AHRC-funded History of Women in the British Film and Television Industries. Before coming to Newcastle, Sue spent eight years with National Life Stories at the British Library. She is editor of The British Book Trade: an oral history.

Sue's 2019 Highlight: Showing off the Oral History Collective

Last June, at the Oral History Society’s annual conference in Swansea, I was sitting between Andy Clark (OHUC) and Niamh Dillon (British Library), watching colleagues present their work on Foodbank Histories. As they described the collaboration that underpins this project, it was interesting to see the ethos mirrored in their presentation style.

Firstly, as each member of the team — Alison Atkinson-Phillips, Sylvie Fisch and Jack Hepworth (then

20a doctoral candidate in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, now PhD) — spoke in turn, the variety of expertise between them became clear. Secondly, their impromptu interaction in the panel discussion that followed demonstrated how readily they drew on each other’s knowledge. This was a ‘show’ as well as a ‘tell’, and it revealed how university and community-based experiences can, when combined, become more than the sum of their parts. As Niamh said at the end (typical oral historian comment) it wasn’t just the words themselves, but how they were expressed.

Alison and Jack presenting at the OHS annual conferenceDr Andy Clark

Andy Clark joined the Oral History Unit in November 2017 having spent nine months as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Stirling. Since being appointed at Newcastle, Andy has contributed to pilot projects including an Oral History of the Thousand Families of Newcastle and the postwar

history of apprenticeships in the North East. In 2018, he was awarded a Rising Star Engagement Award from the British Academy to develop the Deindustrialisation, Heritage and Memory Network (see page 8). In 2019, he received a Leverhulme Trust/British Academy Small Grant to co-lead a new project on the Lockerbie Disaster, 1988, with Dr Colin Atkinson from the University of the West of Scotland (see page 9). In 2019 he signed a contract for his first monograph which will focus on his research into women’s experiences of factory closure in 1980s Scotland. Dynamics of Activism will be published by Liverpool University Press in 2021.

Andy's 2019 Highlight: Histories with Public Importance

My highlight of 2019 was the third and final workshop organised as part of the Deindustrialisation, Heritage and Memory Network, held at the University of Kent’s Canterbury campus. I had the pleasure of chairing the plenary discussion that was organised by Dr Sophie Rowland, who had invited members of the Elvington and Eythorne Heritage Group and the Betteshanger Social Welfare Scheme. These are two organisations comprising former miners who have worked tirelessly to preserve the tangible and non-tangible heritage of the Kent coalfields.

The plenary demonstrated to all delegates the living significance of deindustrialisation, heritage and memory as an area of research beyond academic scholarship. Through hearing from those with lived experiences of the industrial past and the deindustrial present, the public importance of the work that we conduct became much more visible. The plenary highlighted that deindustrialisation studies is inherently a field of public history, and that engaging more directly with community groups and organisations can lead to a more inclusive history of these processes. This was the overarching ambition of the Network, and one which members continue to pursue.

Associate Researchers Liz O'Donnell

Liz, an alumna of Newcastle and Sunderland Universities, joined OHUC in July 2019. After a teaching career in further and higher education, she began working at Northumberland Archives in 2007 as an outreach officer, encouraging public engagement with the collections through community projects, educational activities, heritage events and exhibitions. Expanding their oral history holdings, built up over more than forty years, became an important aspect of her work. Starting with a group of former Bevin Boys, she went on to record the memories of dozens of people who had lived and worked in Northumberland, as well as helping communities develop their own oral history projects.

Since leaving Woodhorn in 2012, Liz has worked as a freelance heritage consultant and oral history interviewer, often with the aim of using the recordings to devise interpretation strategies, such as for the Kielder

21Viaduct project and the Winding House at Woodhorn Museum. Her interviews with 30 former patients and staff of the Stannington Children’s Sanatorium inspired a five-part drama in 2016 by Margaret Wilkinson for Radio 4’s Writing the Century series and, last year, Deborah Ballin also used them for her short story collection, Under an Artificial Sun.

For two years (2011-13) Liz was the oral history coordinator for the North East Labour History Society’s Heritage Lottery-funded ‘Popular Politics’ project, training volunteers to capture the recollections of political activists in the North East. Liz is on the management committee of the Society and a co-editor of its annual publication, North East History. She is also well-known in the North East local history community for her talks, many based on the oral history projects she has led.

As a new addition to our team, Liz told us about her past experiences conducting oral history interviews:

Even when collecting memories relating to a specific theme or event, it is important to try and capture the ‘whole person’, by exploring their life story. This approach reveals the complexities of the remembered past and how that past is understood by each individual. It can also uncover unexpected stories. I interviewed Brian about his experiences being evacuated in 1939 from Newcastle to Berwick-upon-Tweed, but his tale of helping to restore the head of the Earl to Grey’s Monument as a sixteen year old apprentice cabinet-maker working at the studio of Roger Hedley (son of Victorian painter Ralph Hedley) was truly surprising. The original head had been struck by lightning in 1941 but was not replaced until 1948. Brian related how it took two and a half days to get the huge head up the spiral staircase and how, as they manoeuvred it up the scaffolding around the body, a wedge flew off into the street below, narrowly avoiding killing a passer-by, concluding:

"On that job, there was Mr Hedley, who had carved it, who was the brains of it all — and he was a very old man then — there was Bob Fair, and there was Billy Dixon and myself. Now the other three are all gone now, I’m the only one that’s left, and every time I go into Newcastle, which isn’t very often, I look up and sort of give [Earl Grey] a nod (laughter)."

Rosie Bush Rosie Bush is an English

and Drama teacher at a secondary school in Northumberland. Since September she has worked as Culture and Community Coordinator at the school, developing a number of cultural projects that link to the Oral History Unit, including the curation of testimonies by students for the ‘We Made Ships’ website, and a cross-generational oral history project with year 7 students and residents from a local care-home. One of the main focuses for Rosie moving forward is linking Oral History with curriculum content, and encouraging young people to utilise it as part of a wider creative journey. Her school is planning to take a ‘portable museum’ of local heritage to the Tate Modern in June 2020, for which oral history interviews will play a significant part.

Rosie has a personal interest in heritage and community identity, with an MA in Public History and Heritage Management and a column in the local paper, ‘Hidden Heritage’. She is a member of the Northumberland LCEP, and so has links with a number of cultural organisations and practitioners. Rosie also co-ordinates the monthly Oral History Unit Reading Group.

In 2020 Rosie is undertaking ‘Rainbow Flag’ training on behalf of her school, and she hopes to work with Northumberland Pride on an oral history project, currently in its planning stages. She follows the work of the Oral History Society LGBTQ Special Interest Group.

Rosie's 2019 Highlight: We Made Ships launch

My highlight of 2019 was the launch of the We Made Ships website (www.wemadeships.co.uk) in June. The event allowed us to demonstrate the site to academics and teachers. We contacted teachers from all of the secondary schools within the regions of the four North East rivers featured on the site, as well as those from other parts of the UK. Receiving positive feedback from teachers and students prior to and following the summer contributed to the success we felt in completing the project.

22Silvie Fisch

Silvie has been an associate researcher with the Oral History Unit since 2018, and runs the community cul tural organisation Northern Cultural Projects which is also part of the wider Collective. Her work supports transformative, diverse and inclusive community history and heritage practice in the North East.

Silvie initiated the Unit's 'Foodbank Histories', a multi-organisational project connecting oral histories and historical justice, with her main focus on the creative re-use of the interview material.

Silvie's 2019 Highlight: Making a differenceProf Paula Hamilton’s inspirational ‘Insights Lecture’

is certainly one of my highlights. She focused on female victims of trauma and violence, through sexual harassment, abuse and infanticide. She talked about ‘narrative wreckage’, inexpressible knowledge, how the majority of these experiences are not passed on as memories, for many reasons. This does not have to be seen as an absence, but can be considered an active process of not telling, a defiant silence.

And then of course there is our ‘Foodbank Histories’ project, the engagement with clients, exploring new ways to creatively use the information we have been trusted with, the fantastic and fun teamwork, and ultimately the

feeling that we’re slowly but surely making a difference. One unforgettable experience was Live Youth Theatre’s surprise prelude to their outreach performance of ‘Fed Up’ at Newcastle’s Grainger market, the young people marching through the crowd carrying the black and white NUFC Supporters’ ‘Dignity Flag’, singing

"Our lives shall not be sweetened, From birth until life closes, Hearts starve as well as bodies, Give us bread, but give us roses!”

Dr Kath SmithKath runs Remembering

the Past, a charity based in North Tyneside which encourages older people to share their memories and life experiences and record them for the benefit of future generations. She leads a team of volunteers who are skilled in oral history interviewing, post production and dissemination techniques. Her pioneering work demonstrates the value of this kind of community engagement for individuals at risk of social isolation and loneliness. During the past year Kath has supported the Oral History Unit’s monthly gatherings, introduced students to the techniques needed to undertake community-based oral history projects and has been involved in developing oral history projects based around shipbuilding and apprenticeships in the North East. She is one of the Oral History Society's Regional Networkers for the North East and also undertakes specialist freelance projects.

Moses (Papi) Kanu from Live Theatre at the performance of 'Fed Up' at Newcastle's Grainger Market

23Kath's 2019 Highlight: A new partnership

The highlight of 2019 for me has been starting work on a partnership project with Newcastle University’s Department of English and its Special Collections Library, to collect and archive oral histories from original members of Newcastle’s Live Theatre, which was set up as an actors’ collective and touring company in the early 1970s. The company sought to break down barriers by presenting drama to working-class people within their own communities. It toured across the region and performed in non-traditional theatre settings, such as community halls, schools and working men’s clubs. Writers of the calibre of C P Taylor and Tom Hadaway were also committed to the Live Theatre ethos and produced plays which reflected life experiences which audiences could immediately relate to. As the interviews have progressed, the vibrant story of the early days of the collective has emerged. It has highlighted the skills and commitment of a small group of talented actors working with limited financial resources as they met local people in their own familiar environment rather than in a formal theatre setting. The final set of recordings will be a tribute to the founders’ principles.

From a methodological perspective it has been a great experience to liaise with Special Collections and the Oral History Unit to ensure that the interviews are collected to a standard and in a format which will ensure their longevity and accessibility for researchers in the future.

• Our project collaborators, includingo Dr Alex Eastono Dr Ian McDonaldo Dr Josephine Wildmano Professor Mark Pearce o Dr Sarah Ralpho Dr Suzanne Moffatt o Dr Tom Schofield

• International Critical Friends o Dr Doug Boyd o Professor Alessandro Portellio Professor Indira Chowdhury o Professor Joanna Bornat o Professor Paula Hamilton

• Newcastle University Advisory Boardo Professor Eric Cross o Professor Jenny Richards o Jill Taylor-Roe o Professor Matthew Grenby o Professor Nigel Harkness o Professor Richard Clayo Professor Thomas Scharfo Professor Vee Pollock

And most importantly of all...

our interviewees!

• Fellow members of the Oral History Collective

• Our community partners o Common Room of the Northo LIVE Theatreo Living History North East o North East Film Archiveo Northern Cultural Projects o Remembering the Pasto Sunderland Maritime Heritageo and especially the Newcastle West End Foodbank

• Funders o Newcastle University (RIF, Catherine Cookson

Foundation and Social Justice Fund) o UKRI (GCRF) o The British Academy

• Our colleagues in the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, especiallyo Dr Alejandro Quiroga o Barbara Cochrane o Dr Benjamin Houston o Dr Bruce Baker o Claire Holden o Dr Felix Schultzo Professor Helen Berry o James Main o Dr Joan Allen o Dr Joseph Lawson o Lizzie Bello Lottie Garretto Dr Matt Perry o Dr Robert Dale o Dr Sarah Campbell o Vic Christie o Dr Vicky Long o Dr Violetta Hionidou

Acknowledgements In closing, we want to thank: