| Description | Several speakers discuss memories of the First World War and the 1920s, giving details about poverty and unemployment and daily life
Tracks 1-2: A discussion by men about various topics including gathering acorns, having to wear clogs, bare feet, types of footwear worn by children in the past compared with now, searching for work on bicycles, travelling long distances, local characters
Tracks 3-6: woman, possibly Lily Barker, discusses memories of the First World War, inflation of food prices, Zeppelins, anti-German feeling and looting and vandalism of premises, deserters hiding from police, unemployment after the war, experiences of family members being unemployed or ill and unable to work, memories of men looking for work going door to door looking for food while travelling through, and methods of seeking work, children queueing for scraps of food at bakery where woman worked and other food shops, poverty, description of diet, lack of new clothes, decoration of clothes for Whit Sunday, poverty of other children at school, different jobs done and hardship of heavy labouring work -fishing, potato picking, stevedore work, milk round, roads, pub work, painting and decorating, women taking washing in, consciousness of lower social status through occupation, dress, poverty, lack of holidays
Track 7: silence 7.28 mins
Tracks 8-9: A woman, possibly Em Elliott, talks about life during strikes, vouchers received for basic foods and household cleaning supplies, hunger, man talks about eating food from the garden, tea leaves, degrading for men to beg for food and charity from social services - charity for striking miners, intrusiveness of means test questions
Tracks 10-11: Several men including Ned Booth talk about extent of socialist feelings amongst troops fighting in the First World War, including the feelings of German and Russian troops, discussion about the banning of trades unions in Germany and the rise in socialist sympathies amongst German prisoners and workmen before the naval rebellion at Kiel, contrasting situation with workers councils in factories in Britain, discussion of sense of disatisfaction when troops came home, looking for 'homes for heroes' and finding nothing, gravitating to Labour Party, ideas of revolution in Britain in 1920s, many people out of work or on strike, lower wages during 1920s and collapse of wages and prices around time of General Strike
Total: 66.47 mins
Dubber's reference number: PLA KF565D0132180 |