North East Labour History

Through an account of the relationship between picket lines and drivers in Britain, this talk thinks about questions of mobility in labour history. It focuses on three moments in this period. First, the 1972 miners’ strike, when interactions between pickets and hauliers produced moments of powerful solidarity but also violent conflict. Second, debates around a […]

Wednesday, July 26 @ 2pm & 6.30pm The Hub, Cramlington We had 160 at the meetings about the Cramlington Train Wreckers on March 30 and the follow-up film/talk in July 26 has already attracted 75 people with seven weeks to go. The event during the General Strike led to the imprisonment of eight Northumberland miners […]

Behind every great man there’s a great woman, or so goes the old adage. Phyllis Short was the wife of George Short, the Communist Party District Secretary for Teesside, but simply saying this disguises the campaigns for social justice that she herself led. Born into the mining community of Chopwell, when they moved to Stockton in 1931 […]

The date of our AGM has been moved from 12 September to Thursday 7 September. It will be held at the Newcastle Lit and Phil. The speakers will be Victoria Bazin and Melanie Waters who will be talking about the Feminist Print Magazines and Their Influence in the Digital Age project.

Tuesday 26th September at the Lit & Phil at 6.00pm Booking: Lit & Phil Members only until 4th September. In association with Yale University Press Presented by Robert Gildea A powerful new history of the Great Strike, based on more than 140 interviews with former miners and their families. Forty years ago, Arthur Scargill led […]

This talk will reflect on the politicisation of unemployment across UK towns and cities in the early 1980s. With a particular focus on trade union and community organising, the presentation will reflect on the role of Unemployed Workers’ Centres in articulating opposition to deindustrialisation, redundancies, and long-term unemployment. Focusing upon centres as ‘solidarity infrastructures’ allows […]

From Liam Liburd: My name is Liam Liburd and I'm the Assistant Professor of Black British History at Durham University. I'm also the Department of History's Public History Officer and am responsible for arranging history-related public events across the academic year. I'm writing to bring our Black History Month event to your attention... History Now! BHM […]

From Martin Levy The annual 'Volunteers for Liberty' event, to commemorate the volunteers from the North East who gave their lives fighting in the International Brigade in Spain, will be held at 2 pm on Sunday 29 October at the memorial plaque in the grounds of Newcastle Civic Centre. Speakers will include author Alex Clifford and representatives from the Communist […]

Our apologies - a fault in the Black History Conversations 365 website has made it impossible to register for this meeting. However, the link below gives an explanation of why Laura has apologised for her family's slave-owning past and what she is doing about it now. https://www.beaconcollaborative.org.uk/laura-trevelyan-i-hope-my-apology-and-reparations-for-my-familys-slave-owning-past-will-set-an-example-to-others/ Laura Trevelyan: "I hope my apology and reparations […]

A Distant World is John Charlton’s account of growing up in the 1950s. He traces his family’s origins, birth, childhood and education in a detailed account which references aspects of family, work, social and political life on Tyneside over his first two decades. John worked as a school teacher then higher education lecturer at Leeds […]