Writing Lives – Collaborative Research Project on Working-Class Autobiography

Amy Gomm (b.1899-1984): Life and Labour

‘Towards the end of November, I was watching the “Situations Vacant” column again. “Shorthand-typist Wanted,” the ad.said, plus the usual additional requirements of good handwriting and quick at figures. Written application was demanded by the multiple tailoring shop open in Cornmarket’ (Gomm, 162). In ‘Water Under the Bridge,’ labour is …

Martha Martin (b.1871): Purpose & Audience

But if I had ever thought I might have written all this, I would have kept a diary Martha Martin, ‘The Ups and Downs of Life’, p.239 As I noted in her Biographical Entry Martha’s memoir is a 36,000 word unpublished memoir, though as the above quote appears to indicate, Martha …

Amy Gomm (b.1899-1984): War and Memory

‘Everbody’s war, that had been threatening for so long, actually broke out a few months later. It still had little impact on …

Guy Oates (1905 – 1987): Education and Schooling-Part 4

‘Was this his last and final attempt to break me. How could any human being so cruel. If this was my school …

Nora Lumb (b. 1912) Education and Schooling Blog: Part 2

“Fashion prescribed long buttoned or laced up boots and fastening with a major difficulty so school provided practice pieces of leathered joined …

Researching Writing Lives

After completing the ‘Prison Voices’ project in my second year at university, I was excited at the prospect of being part of …

Maud Clarke (1887-1982): Education and Schooling – Part 2: Teaching

Few people know what career they want as children, but Maud Matilda Clarke (née Mills b.1887) started her much loved teaching profession …

Nora Lumb (b.1912) Education and Schooling Blog: Part 1

“I started school when I was four years old.” (Lumb, pg. 5) Nora Lumb, a working-class citizen born in 1912. Through her …

Hilda Salusbury (1906-1993): Life Writing, Class and Identity

Class status is not something which Hilda goes into great depth about during the course of her memoir. She tells the reader …

Hilda Salusbury (1906-1993): Childhood Memories

‘We spent happy evenings around the piano in my early childhood, singing old favourites. My mother played and I was learning‘ (19) …