| AdminHistory | Charles Parker worked as a freelance lecturer in the 1960s and 1970s for the Workers Educational Association (WEA) and the University of Birmingham Extra-Mural Department in folksong and oral history. His lecturing work is of enormous significance and national importance. Charles Parker used 'actuality' recordings (voices and songs of ordinary people) to illustrate his belief that vernacular speech is the key to communication and that people, and particularly those in education, needed to learn from this in order to communicate effectively in the future. Another central theme of his lecturing was his belief that capitalist industrial society was in danger of losing touch with its historical and social traditions which are essential for establishing and maintaining a social identity.
The recordings in this series mainly comprise examples of the 'actuality' used by Charles Parker in some of his WEA lectures rather than recordings of the lectures themselves. They also include recordings at the Morris Commercial factory, Saltley with Bob Etheridge talking to the workers about folk music at MS 4000/5/2/2/15-18.
See written documentation on lectures by Charles Parker for the WEA and the University of Birmingham Extra-Mural Department 1964-1977 at MS 4000/1/3/2. |