Lives less Ordinary

I spent over a year listening and then recording other peoples stories. I feel that I have a far better understanding regarding our social history than when I began my project. I set out to talk to people from all sorts of backgrounds. Famous, and infamous folk, have such a lot written about them. What about  those who have known hardship and pain but still bounced back.

    Jim, aged 94, flutently, talking about his father who served his country during WW1. Of the poverty those that returned faced. His dad queing to pawn his de-mobb suit for seven shillings and sixpence- this money paying the rent for a week. Whilst I listened to Jim, at Burton Latimer library, I realised that the relative poverty I'd faced as a child palled into insignificance. Children dying from diptheria, Jims mother losing twins to this illness. About benefits being cut and how poor people were stigmatised then, just as he thought they were being stigmatised now. The Jarrow march was formed by people from all classes wanting a living wage for everyone.

I'm grateful that people like Jim had the courage to say what they felt. Also that he had the patience to wait whilst I recorded his story as his words flowed.

If it hadn't been for my losing all my paternal roots, following my dad's death when I was a child, I would have not had such a strong pull to keep going with my interviews. It's been amazing where I've been and who I've listened to. Now comes the hard part.