Warwickshire News Mine

Michael Saich of the Library Services Trust presented Paul McIlroy, Lesley Kirkwood and Louise Essex of Warwickshire County Council Library Service with the Alan Ball Local History award at Camp Hill Library. The award was given in recognition of the Working Lives history project, which charted the memories of people involved with Nuneaton and Bedworth’s past.

To celebrate, local people were invited to the ceremony and also to share some of their own history with writer Campbell Perry who held a storytelling and reminiscence workshop.

Nuneaton and Bedworth’s rich industrial heritage helped produce a wide range of products ranging from Concorde’s nose and bricks for the Empire State Building, to car parts and knickers.  Coordinated by Warwickshire County Council’s Library Service, Working Lives featured more than 50 people who worked in the brick and tile, engineering, quarrying and textile industries in the area. The interviews and over 300 photographs cover from the 1930s to the 21st century, a period which included a World War and its aftermath, immigration from former British colonies and rapid changes in technology.

Working Lives combined oral and written history to produce a website and supporting book. Judges of the Alan Ball Local History Awards were particularly impressed by the project’s innovative use of technology, which helped to make Working Lives accessible to everyone. The Alan Ball Local History Awards were established 24 years ago to encourage local history publishing by public libraries and local authorities.

Cllr Chris Saint, Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Culture and Housing at Warwickshire County Council, said: “Everyone should feel proud of this outstanding piece of work which has preserved an important part of local history for future generations.”

Patricia Carbutt and Alan Green were just two of the people featured in Working Lives who were there to see their part in history receiving a national award. Alan Green worked in the textiles industry and started off as a bobbin boy while Patricia Carbutt worked in the typing pool at Clarkson’s Engineering.

You can visit the website at http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/workinglives
or buy a book by contacting Nuneaton Library tel. 024 7638 4027 or 024 7634 7006. All profits from the sale of the book will be used to promote the project and run further events and copies can be borrowed for free from your nearest library.

Link to WCC