The Team

Sue Bradley

  • Research Associate Oral History Unit
  • Email:
  • Telephone: 0191 208 4609
  • Sue Bradley is an experienced oral historian. Having worked in the Centre for Rural Economy for the past ten years, Sue brings a non-urban focus to the unit’s work.

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. She works part-time in the Oral History Unit where she is currently responsible for the rural strand of Work and After, and for developing shared processes with the University’s Special Collections for the collection and archiving of oral histories.

Sue has worked at Newcastle University since 2007, initially in the Centre for Rural Economy, on topics ranging from flood risk to honey bee health. She set up the Veterinary Lives oral history project and a collaboration with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and Andrew Gardiner of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies to explore the use of oral history audio testimony in reflective learning for veterinary professionals. She has also worked in the School of English, as the oral historian on the AHRC-funded History of Women in the British Film and Television Industries, led by Melanie Bell and Vicky Ball.

Before coming to Newcastle, Sue spent eight years with National Life Stories at the British Library, where she was responsible for recording the Book Trade Lives collection of interviews with publishers and booksellers. She is editor of British Book Trade: an oral history. 

Alongside her role in the Oral History Unit, Sue also works in the Centre for Rural Economy as a researcher on the history team of ‘Field’, a Wellcome-funded interdisciplinary project to inform the reduction of endemic disease in British livestock farming.