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’s new book Mutinous Memories (Manchester University Press 2019). 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 been able to up 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.

Survivor Memorials: Remembering Trauma and Loss in Contemporary Australia was published by University of Western Australian Publishing, 2019.

Last June, at the Oral History Society’s annual conference in Swansea, I was sitting between Andy Clark (Newcastle OHU) 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-Philips (OHU), Sylvie Fisch (community-based historian and director of Northern Cultural Projects) and Jack Hepworth (then a doctoral candidate in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, now PhD) – spoke in turn, the variety of expertise they had 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 Dillon said at the end – typical oral historian comment – it wasn’t just the words themselves, but how they were expressed.

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.

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 to others who had contact us to express an interest in 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.

Prof 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!”

As our newest member, Liz shared an anecdote about one of her experiences conducting oral history research: 

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).

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 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.