All too often in the past the testimony of ordinary people has been ignored. In that top down approach to telling history, the rich, the powerful and the brave have entered the history books to the almost complete exclusion of the poor, the working class and women. And if they did feature it was as a walk on part. I remember one history text book designed for students aged between 13-14 which in its 25 chapters had only one which featured a woman in a leading role and this was Maria Antoinette who was killed off by the fourth page. In the remaining chapters there was just one picture of a woman sitting at spinning wheel.
How refreshing then that Chorlton Good Neighbours have been carrying out a project to record the memories of people who lived here through most of the last century. You can follow them at http://chorltongoodneighbours.blogspot.com/ or in the recently produced collection of their memories entitled Chorlton Memories Project
Picture from the cover page of the book Memories of Chorlton
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