Northumbria University. Workshop: Change-making between the Local and the Global: A Conversation
2025-10-08 10:00 - 16:15 (Europe/London) | Business Hub, Library, room 304E, Northumbria University, Sandyford Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 8ST
From Daniel Laqua | Professor of Modern and Contemporary History | Department of Humanities | Northumbria University
On 8 October, we’re running a workshop at Northumbria University, entitled ‘Change-making between the Local and the Global: A Conversation’. It’s part of a wider project that my colleague Henry Miller and I are involved in. The aim of this event is to use some historical examples to facilitate conversations on the links between local and global activism. I’m conscious that many NELH members are not only interested in history but also often have personal experience of various forms of activism. With this in mind, would you be able to share the details with them?
Details, including a page to book a place on the workshop, are available here:
Change-making between the Local and the Global: A Conversation Tickets, Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 10:00 AM | Eventbrite

NELH Tuesday Meeting, Tyneside Irish Centre. Mike Fraser will talk about The Geordie Appeaser - Viscount Runciman's Mission to Czechoslovakia in 1938
2025-11-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Tyneside Irish Centre, 43 Gallowgate, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4SG, United Kingdom
Runciman’s mission to Czechoslovakia was a key part of Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement. Mike has not delivered this talk in about 12 years so why revisit it now? It initially occurred to him when he recognised that Putin spoke of the Russian speakers in Ukraine similarly to how Hitler spoke of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia. The decision was confirmed when he heard the former head of the British military state that we are at the 1937 stage with Russia.
Mike will discuss how Runciman’s mission became a significant precursor of the Munich agreement with Hitler.

NELH Tuesday Meeting. The Closure of Sunderland's Shipyards: The Inside Story with Bob Clay and Martin Spence
2026-02-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Zoom
In December 1988 Sunderland’s shipyards closed despite a long and passionate campaign to save them, and 800 years of shipbuilding on the Wear came to an end. Yet this closure has always looked bizarre. Why were these sophisticated modern yards, representing millions of pounds of public investment, written off? Why did the Tory Government sideline a major shipowner keen to place an order which could have kept the yards open?
In this meeting Martin Spence will summarise his recent research into 1980s government papers which suggest answers to these questions. Bob Clay will comment on these findings in the light of his own experiences in the 1980s.
Bob Clay was Labour MP for Sunderland North from 1983 to 1992 and led the campaign to save the yards.
Martin Spence worked in ‘Days of Hope’ bookshop in Newcastle, and later for the media trade union BECTU, where he was Assistant General Secretary.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82998141605?pwd=[REDACTED]

Meeting ID: 829 9814 1605
Passcode: [REDACTED]

NELH Tuesday Meeting. Lewis Mates will talk about the 1926 General Strike
2026-05-05 19:00 - 21:00 | Tyneside Irish Centre, 43 Gallowgate, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4SG, United Kingdom
Details to follow
