| Description | The material forms 6 groups:
1 Interviews with the residents of St Ann’s.
2 Interviews with the authors of the book ' Poverty: The Forgotten Englishmen', leaders of the social studies group, and members of the study group.
3 Assembly of the battle of St Ann’s programme
4 'Battle of St Ann’s' the programme.
5 Dialogue with Charles Parker about his work.
6 Other recordings.
1 Interviews with the residents of St Ann’s: the interviews take place in the interviewee's or a friend's home. The interviews are organic in that the subject is not asked a set group of questions; the interviewer is either Charles Parker or an unidentified woman and it is probable that Ken Coates is present for the interviews: the questions or prompts made by the interviewer are not always audible. It is not clear how the residents were selected for interview, however within the interview the interviewee often names or suggests someone who is then interviewed later. There appears to be a full interview for each person used in the inserts. Below is a list of residents interviewed and the references to the recording of their interviews.
Mrs Worthington (elderly resident): MS 4000/6/1/66/1 tracks 3 - 8.
Mrs Lawson (elderly resident): MS 4000/6/1/66/5 tracks 2 - 11, MS 4000/6/1/66/6 tracks 1 - 2.
Mrs Wilson (resident aged 69): MS 4000/6/1/66/6 tracks 5 - 6, MS 4000/6/1/66/7, MS 4000/6/1/66/8, MS 4000/6/1/66/9 tracks 1 - 2.
Mr and Mrs Priestley, Mrs Bolter (middle aged/elderly residents) and Janet Priestly (resident aged 19): MS 4000/6/1/66/9 tracks 3 - 10, MS 4000/6/1/66/10, 6/1/66/11 tracks 1 - 2.
Mrs Hardy (elderly resident): MS 4000/6/1/66/11 tracks 3 - 10, MS 4000/6/1/66/12 tracks 1 - 8.
Mr and Mrs D.M. Sandford (young adult residents): MS 4000/6/1/66/12 track 9 - 11, MS 4000/6/1/66/13, MS 4000/6/1/66/14 tracks 1 - 5.
Mr Beckham and Family (middle aged/elderly residents): MS 4000//6/1/66/14 6 - 12, MS 4000/6/1/66/15 tracks 1 - 2.
Mrs Connell and Mrs Yellop (residents aged in their 20s and 30s): MS 4000/6/1/66/15 tracks 3 - 10, MS 4000/6/1/66/16.
Mrs Hayle (resident aged 70): MS 4000/6/1/66/17, MS 4000/6/1/66/18
Mrs O'Toole (middle aged resident): MS 4000/6/1/66/19, MS 4000/6/1/66/20.
2 Interviews with the authors of the book ‘Poverty: The Forgotten Englishmen’, leaders of the social studies group and members of the study group. The interviews are organic in that the subject is not asked a set group of questions; the location of the interviews is not identified, the interviewer is Charles Parker. It is not clear how the students were selected for interview. There appears to be a full interview for each person used in the inserts. Below is a list of people interviewed and the references to the recording of their interviews.
*It has not been possible to establish whether Bill Sel, Bil Shilbern and Richard Silburn are the same person.
Bill Sel?* (helped with study group): MS 4000/6/1/66/1 tracks 9 - 12, MS 4000/6/1/66/2 tracks 1 - 7, MS 4000/6/1/66/3 track 8
Bill Sel* or Ken Coates: MS 4000/6/1/66/2 track 8 - 11, MS 4000/6/1/66/3 track 1 - 6 and 10,
Ken Coates (leader of the study group): MS 4000/6/1/66/3 track 7 and 9, MS 4000/6/1/66/4 track 1 - 11, MS 4000/6/1/66/5 track 1,
Bill Shilbern*: MS 4000/6/1/66/6 track 3
Lin Kent (member of the study Group): MS 4000/6/1/66/21 Tracks 1 - 10
Geoffrey Oldfield, Ken Fleet and Jean Burnet (members of the study Group): MS 4000/6/1/66/21 track 11, MS 4000/6/1/66/22, MS 4000/6/1/66/23, MS 4000/6/1/66/24
3 Assembly of the battle of St Ann’s program: this material falls into 4 groups. The material shows the particular sections of interest in the interviews to Charles Parker and the compilers and groups together related comments from the different interviews for each issue, however it is likely that the interviews, final editing recordings for the program and the final program will be of the most use to the researcher.
Inserts: MS 4000/6/1/66/32, MS 4000/6/1/66/25 and MS 4000/6/1/66/26
Sequences: MS 4000/6/1/66/27, MS 4000/6/1/66/28
Editing: MS 4000/6/1/66/29, MS 4000/6/1/66/30 and MS 4000/6/1/66/33
Trailers: MS 4000/6/1/66/32
4 'Battle of St Ann’s' the program: the programme is a combination of Charles Parker dialogue including quotes from the book Poverty the Forgotten Englishman and inserts of the residents, the social studies group and the authors of the book. MS 4000/6/1/66/33.
5 A recording of a dialogue with Charles Parker about his work; it is not clear what the purpose of the recordings is, it is most likely that these recordings are on a tape that is being reused and possibly relates to MS 4000/2/138a. The location and audience/questioner are not identified. The material provides a view of Parker’s thoughts about his earlier projects and his approach to his work.
MS 4000/6/1/66/31 tracks 10 - 23 and MS 4000/6/1/66/27 tracks 24 - 28
6 Other recordings (likely remnants of other projects).
MS 4000/6/1/66/1 tracks 1-2 a discussion and performance of army so the interview is with Martin Kalimi and others.
MS 4000/6/1/66/27 track 27, song ‘So much methadone’
MS 4000/6/1/66/31 encloses a sequence from ‘Ballad of John Axon’, ‘The Big Hewer’ and ‘Any Dark Morning’. |
| AdminHistory | The 'Battle of St Ann’s' is a radio documentary on the poverty, housing and clearance of the St Ann’s 'slums' area in Nottingham. The documentary is based on 3 years of work by a social study group and inspired by the controversial book 'Poverty: the Forgotten Englishman' by Ken Coates and Richard Silburn. The programme is a combination of Charles Parker dialogue including quotes from the book and inserts: of the residents, the social studies group and the authors of the book. The program is compiled by Ken Coates and Richard Silburn, and produced by Charles Parker for Radio 4 Birmingham.
St Ann’s is a large suburb of Nottingham. To ease congestion in the city in the mid- 1800s, 10,000 back-to-back terraced houses were created (these were of a high standard for the class of residents at the time), along with other leafier areas and civil amenities. By the 1960s, St Ann's was looking impoverished and many of the buildings and infrastructure were starting to decay. A local Housing Act raised legal standards of housing considered 'fit for human habitation' in 1969. The clearance of some of the land began in the December of that year, building of new houses started in 1973 and the development continued into the 1980s. This renovation included the displacing of many residents to The Meadows area of the city.
In 1965/66 Ken Coates was teaching a social study class; this class went on to produce the survey of the St Ann’s area. The class read Able, Smith & Townsend's book ' The poor and the poorest ': the book is a published study of statistics on poverty and used a new methodology to collect the data. The class became very engaged with this book and the topics that it raised and many students formed opposing views about the issues and the material; this led to the group deciding to make a study in Nottingham based on the model used in the book. The St Ann’s area was selected due to the areas close proximity to their work base, however the group acknowledges that they knew this to be an area of deprivation.
The study group collected data in a variety of different ways including conducting an in depth interview with 1 in 6 households. One of the characteristics that made the study ground breaking was that it did not focus in on groups and seek to interview them (i.e. on unemployed single mothers or the elderly reliant on a state pension), it interviewed across the whole community to build a view of its composition. The first published report was entitled 'St Ann’s: Poverty, Deprivation and Morale in a Nottingham Community'; it showed that 36% of the population of St Ann’s were living in 'poverty'. In 2007 the report was republished to mark its 40th Anniversary. Successive groups produced reports for a number of years.
The survey and the report gave rise to the television documentary 'St Ann's' (1969) directed by Stephen Frears for Thames Television and formed the basis for the controversial and widely acclaimed book 'Poverty: The Forgotten Englishmen' written by Ken Coates and Richard Silburn (respectively tutor and member of the social study group?), released by the Penguin Press in May 1970. The book contains a large amount of statistical material and analysis and is written in an evocative style as this passage illustrates 'Nothing is personal, unless it is whispered, If you want to go to the lavatory, you meet your neighbours in the yard. If you want to make love you may well feel it discreet to listen for your neighbour's snores before you start the bed springs rattling.' |