The North East has an amazing history of struggle and success, of cooperation and community, of fairness, tolerance and solidarity. Yet sadly this is not a history that is well known by many people in our region. Little or none of it is taught in our schools and much of it goes unrecognised by the people of the North East.
One society that has been around for nearly 60 years that seeks to preserve our stories of industrial work and the struggle for a fairer world is the North East Labour History Society. It is proud to be Britain’s oldest regional labour history society, having been founded in 1967. In the ensuing years, it has been able to document many areas of the lives of the working people of the North East, which otherwise may have been lost. The society is dedicated to the study of working people’s history in the region, particularly during the modern period. The society encourages an atmosphere of discussion and debate on both historical and contemporary issues.
The society has a committee which is drawn up from labour historians and activists in the North East. In its work, which includes an excellent annual journal of original research, the society aims to keep many wonderful stories from our region’s past. The society also holds regular public meetings and they welcome members and non members alike to their NELHS Tuesday Meetings and their Annual General Meeting. In these meetings, discussion is open to all.
Why is it important for this history to be preserved?
Much of the history that is taught in our schools is about kings and queens, the rich and the powerful and often people who lived in the south of England and never came near the North East in their lives. A lot of this history is totally disconnected from the lived experience of the children of our region and unsurprisingly many of them find it boring and uninspiring.
However, when I have gone into schools and have taught children about the history of working people in the North East, the response has almost invariably been enthusiastic. Even though many of the stories I tell are about a world that has now vanished; of pits and shipyards, of hard industrial work and equally hard industrial struggle, the pupils can relate to it. If I am in a school for two days, many come in the second day with artefacts from home, reminders of their family’s past. It is their history and they can feel a pride in it.
However, many people get little exposure to their own history and consequently are unaware of much of it. This seems a terrible shame as there are a number of ways that a greater knowledge of the history of working people in the North East could be useful.
Why should more people learn this history?
The most obvious reason why more people should be learning the stories of working people in the history of the North East is because they are their stories. They are the stories of their families, of their loved ones, of their ancestors. People have a right to know what their roots are. It helps to keep people grounded and can help them to go forward into the future with a renewed sense of purpose. They can draw strength from these stories, which can help them through hard times. They can get a sense of perspective as well, which again is more than handy when hard times come knocking on the door.
Another reason for learning about these stories is that they are stories which we can take pride in. In many ways, the North East has been on the backfoot since the Versailles Treaty in 1919, made provisions for the French and others to get coal from Germany as reparations after the First World War and so our export markets began to contract. This was soon followed by Winston Churchill putting Britain back on the Gold Standard in 1925, so making coal exports more expensive and then the crushing defeat in the General Strike the following year.
As a consequence of these events, a self-confident region, inhabited by skilled workers and what Robert Colls has called ‘true-bred pitmen’ and a forward-looking region, which was home to so many innovations which benefited humanity, lost much of its confidence. Gradually, the decision-making about our region and our lives has been outsourced more and more to people who not only don’t live here but have no understanding of it either. It is therefore important that people in the region have access to stories which can remind of the confidence people in the North East once had – and can hopefully have again.
Following on from this, stories of working people in the region can provide positive role models, both for our young and older citizens. They can provide ideas and inspiration for those involved today in struggles for justice and for a sense of community. The stories told by North East Labour History Society can also remind people that the rights that we often take for granted had to be won in the first place and so consequently can be lost.
Looking to the future
Looking to the future, there are perhaps two areas where the work of the North East Labour History Society might be particularly useful. Firstly, there is the question of how we develop a just transition in the North East to a low-carbon or carbon-free economy. The change to a green economy will need a huge change in many of our working practices and systems within society in general. It will be an upheaval comparable in scale to the first industrial revolution. The stories that the North East Labour History has to tell can enable us to see how that first industrial revolution was not a just transition in many ways and while the times are different today, they can still teach us many valuable lessons. If we want to avoid the mistakes made 200 years ago, we need to be clear as to what those mistakes were.
The second area where the work of the North East Labour History Society has particular relevance to today and tomorrow is that of helping to rebuild communities. There has been much fragmentation of communities in the North East as deindustrialisation has taken away many of the common enterprises, which used to bring people together. Neighbours can seem like strangers today, while social media silos us into different groups in ways through which mutual suspicion can and does thrive.
However, it is often forgotten that the North East was in the words of David Byrne, the ‘Yukon of the North’ in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The pit villages and shipyard towns were full of people who came from many different places. To quote just one example, the background of the great County Durham miner artist Norman Cornish, is Cornish, Lancashire, Scottish and Irish. Yet communities were built as [people found common ground and learnt to work together in their chapels and mutual aid societies, building organisations like the trade union movement and the cooperative movement. At a time when many are concerned about the stirring of divisions in society, surely it makes sense to revisit these stories. The North East Labour History Society helps us to do just that.
In Geordies from 1992, Bill Williamson made the following observation: “The past is not just given. It is something to be recovered and reconstituted. And this is not just a normal process, the unfolding work of historians, which goes on all when all else is changing.” We are going through times of great and rapid change in many ways now. It is all the more important then, that the work of organisations such as the North East Labour History Society is remembered and respected. It grounds us and provides us with a vital anchor on stormy days.
Heritage is important to the North East. One only has to go to Beamish Museum on a sunny weekend in summer and see how busy it is, or go to Durham on the 2nd Saturday in July and be part of the hundreds of thousands who flock to that beautiful city every year for the Durham Miners gala, to see how important it is to people. It should be important, We are a distinctive region, with a wonderfully rich history, from which we can learn and be inspired by.
The North East Labour History Society has an important role to play in preserving and promoting this heritage.
For more information about the North East Labour History Society and how to join and get involved please see here.
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