ORAL history recordings featuring memories of life on Teesside over a century ago can be heard for the first time in decades as part of a collaboration between Heritage Unlocked and Teesside Archives for Stockton & Middlesbrough Local History Month.
The first featured oral history extract is focused on the Second World War and features the memories of Sidney Clay, born in Thornaby in 1927. The son of a railwayman who was President of the Newport Workingmen's Club, Clay attended Archibald School and spent most of his working life on the railways at Newport Shunting Yards and Middlesbrough Dock. One of the youngest ever Branch Secretaries of the National Union of Railwaymen and a prominent member of the Communist Party, in the newly digitsed recording Clay recalls life in communal air raid shelters, the bombing of Middlesbrough Railway Station, an anti-aircraft site near the Newport Bridge, and experiencing wartime blackouts.
The first featured oral history extract is focused on the Second World War and features the memories of Sidney Clay, born in Thornaby in 1927. The son of a railwayman who was President of the Newport Workingmen's Club, Clay attended Archibald School and spent most of his working life on the railways at Newport Shunting Yards and Middlesbrough Dock. One of the youngest ever Branch Secretaries of the National Union of Railwaymen and a prominent member of the Communist Party, in the newly digitsed recording Clay recalls life in communal air raid shelters, the bombing of Middlesbrough Railway Station, an anti-aircraft site near the Newport Bridge, and experiencing wartime blackouts.