Oral history creates a permanent record of peoples’ recollections of their lifetime experiences. The sixty oral histories we have here draw on a range of activities undertaken by North East Labour History Society members and others. The histories are from people who have spent their lives in the cooperative movement, the mines and other industries, the unions and political activity.

If you have transcripts or notes from interviews with people who have been involved in the labour movement in the North East we would be delighted to provide space for them on our site (. As well as the name of the interviewee and a photograph, it would be helpful to have their dates, where they lived and worked, the name of the interviewer and, if applicable, the project or organisation through which the interview was done. It is important to get permission from the person who has been interviewed to put their information on this site.

All interview transcripts and notes © Copyright North East Labour History Society 2016. If you wish to use any of these transcripts and notes, please ask permission from NELHS ( and please give due attribution.

Some people may appear under more than one heading.

 

Co-operative Movement

There are many sets of interview notes with members of the cooperative movement, so there are three separate Co-operative pages.

The first is ‘cooperative voices‘: people who worked for the CWS (Cooperative Wholesale Society), some of them for very many years.

The second page has co-operative movement activists.

The third page has Vox pop’ style memories of the Co-op at Woodhorn Miners’ Picnic (June 2012)

Trades Unions

Most of the interviews with Trades Unionists were conducted as part of the Popular Politics Project.

 

Political Organisations

All of the interviews with politically active people were conducted as part of the Popular Politics Project.

 

Women’s Movement

All of the interviews with people from the Women’s Movement were conducted as part of the Popular Politics Project.

 

Peace Movement

All of the interviews with people from the Peace Movement were conducted as part of the Popular Politics Project.

 

Other

All of these interviews of people with other backgrounds were conducted as part of the Popular Politics Project.