Regional Advisers’ Annual Report for North West England 2024

Stephen Kelly

It’s been a steady year in terms of inquiries and active work, for the North West region. In a few cases I unusually found myself involved with projects in the Yorkshire region. Below are the various communications and work that I have done.

• Wigan Athletic Football club: recently received a grant of £130,000 from the Heritage Fund for a project to cover the history of their club. The archive of the club was lost when it went into administration in 2020. This included all the official club records prior to that date. A large part of the project will involve oral history with club volunteers interviewing fans and others about the history of the club, their particular memories and the experience of being a fan. The project will commence in 2025.
• African Festival, Leigh: I attended an open day event in Leigh library and gave a short talk about oral history to about 20 people and training was given to volunteers in oral history over two days. The project has received Heritage funding plan to put on a number of public events during the course of 2025.
• Rochdale Fire Station: Following oral history training in 2023, I was invited to attend an open day celebration at the fire station go mark the end of their project. The project is an outstanding example of how successful a heritage projects can be. https://www.manchesterfire.gov.uk/community/fireground-museum/
• Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield: The theatre is celebrating its 40^th anniversary and had received a grant from the Heritage Fund. It was keen to include some oral testimony in an exhibition, at the theatre. Following an initial meeting to discuss the project, two days training was given to volunteers. The theatre had https://www.thelbt.org/your-visit/
• I was invited to give a talk about the Granadaland oral history project at Cambridge University, to the university’s contemporary social and cultural seminar group at Gonville and Caius College. The seminar was attended by 20 PhD students, plus a number of academics. https://www.granadaland.org/
• Following an initial inquiry and face to face meeting with the project co-ordinator, we successfully gave two days training to a supportability centre in South Manchester working with people with cerebral palsy to six volunteers. The group is celebrating 70 years since its founding and has received a grant from the Heritage Fund. https://www.supportability.org.uk/
• My book, How the Beatles Rocked the World, was published in July by White Owl. It includes extracts from a number of lengthy oral history interviews with people about their experiences of the 1960s, including an interview with Clare Jenkins, the Yorkshire regional adviser.

Rosalyn Livshin

This year I gave training to people who were working on the following oral history projects.

• A project at Teeside University, Middlesbrough received funding from AHRC to conduct interviews with the Irish Diaspora in GB on memories related to Irish political culture and gender in the 20^th
• A project at Manchester City Football Club to conduct an oral history project with past employees of the Club.
• Akoma Arts, Liverpool which is collecting memories and photographs on the Liverpool Caribbean Carnival and Shadow and the influence of Arnold Davis on the carnival in Liverpool and London.
• A Leverhulme funded project ‘Life Stories of Infrastructure’, which is looking at Tyneside transportation networks. It aims to interview transport users, planners, engineers and other groups who campaigned against infrastructural installations, those who lived close and those who witnessed key milestones and changes from 1945-1995.
• A project at the National Horseracing Museum, Newmarket to interview older racing professionals and friends of the late Queen on her love of horses and racing.
• Birmingham Museums Trust, which is cataloguing a previous project and carrying out new recordings as the basis for health enquiry, positioning oral histories as community health resources.
• Ulster Orchestra, Derry, which is running an oral history about the Ulster Orchestra.
• A project at Leith Theatre, which is working on a memory bank project with Leith Theatre actors, staff and theatre goers.
• A project at the University of Northampton which is developing an oral history archive of staff and student experiences at the University.
• A project in London, which is conducting interviews relating to Tooting Bec Psychiatric Hospital.
• A project at University of Manchester, which is conducting an oral history project on James Baldwin and Britain. https://james-baldwin-and-britain.manchester,ac.uk/
• A PhD student at the University of Westminster School of Architecture and Cities, who is looking at the gendered spatial program and practices in the domestic spaces of the Mapipila community using oral history and other sources.
• A PhD student at Royal Holloway, who is conducting an oral history project with British South Asian communities in London and how they became agents in negotiating their own identities.