Writing Lives – Collaborative Research Project on Working-Class Autobiography

Ken Hayter (b. 1940): Home & Family (1/2)

“This then was my immediate family: Mam, Charlie, someone called Dad and me. We lived in No. 43 Tagus Street, off Lodge Lane, Liverpool 8, one of a row of identical red-brown brick terraced ‘two-up, two-downs’” (24) To Hayter, home and family is what makes up the majority of his …

Fermin Rocker (b.1907.): Purpose and Audience

Fermin Rocker’s 1998 memoir focuses on his childhood in Stepney before the outbreak of World War One and his positive relationship with his anarchist Father Rudolf. It is clear that Rocker’s focus on his childhood is a conscious tool to highlight the optimism of the era before war began, and …

Susan Silvester (1878 – 1968): Purpose and Audience

‘The things I remember… will most likely be of interest only to those who know the place and the people where I …

Pat O’Mara (1901-1983): An Introduction

Pat O’Mara’s The Autobiography of a Liverpool Slummy is a published autobiography about life in the city of Liverpool in the beginning …

Susan Silvester (1878 – 1968): Home and Family

‘We had to put up with a lot of discomfort but we always knew that when we got home there would be …

Pat O’Mara

Norah Fearon Knight (1910-2000): Purpose and Audience

“I had hoped to end on a happy note, but while I have been writing, two more of the family have gone …

Matthew Grimes (b. 1885) – Purpose and Audience

Dingle man Matthew Grimes was interviewed by John Berger at Granada Television Studios on 19th July 1963, just months after the first …

Ken Hayter (b.1940): Purpose and Audience

“All the events in the tales are as true as my memory allows and, whilst the characters are fictional, they can be …

Fermin Rocker (b.1907.) : An Introduction

Fermin Rocker (22 December 1907 – 18 October 2004) Fermin Rocker, born on the 22nd December 1907 in the East End of …