Coventry and Liverpool Lives Oral History Collection, c.1945-1970

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.This is a qualitative data collection. The Coventry and Liverpool Lives oral history project collected 58 oral history interviews with 21 men and women who have lived and worked in these cities since approximately 1945. The project aimed to explore how working-class men and women narrate their life histories and how social memory impacts on life stories told. By using the life history method of research change and continuity in the way people identify themselves across their life was captured. The interviews aimed to question the significance of 'affluence' amongst a group of working-class people in two economically diverse English cities after 1945. The interviews highlight the continued significance people place on class and gender to identify themselves even if at times definitions of the terms appear ambivalent. This collection contributes significantly to our understanding and knowledge of post-war everyday life. The interviews cover topics such as childhood, neighbourhood, home life, schooling, youth, leisure, first job, work history including periods of unemployment, National Service, marriage, motherhood, fatherhood and later life. Together they include people’s experiences prior to 1945, through the 1980s to the time of interviewing in 2008. Post-war migration to these cities from across the UK, Iran and the Punjab are represented. The collection fills a gap in sources of the period by focusing on Coventry and Liverpool, two cities that experienced severe bomb damage during the Second World War and subsequently significant social and economic change and redevelopment after1945. Peoples’ memories of the 1970s and 1980s when both cities experienced high unemployment and economic downturn due to the demise of industry and manufacturing are well detailed. Historians’ attention is shifting from the London centric image of the swinging sixties to consider more regional and local experiences of the post-war period. This collection will make a significant contribution to this new direction in British history.