Mersey Voices

Personal memories of ordinary people give us a unique and powerful view of life in the past.

This collection of reminiscences of Merseyside people was selected by Diana Pulson from the many interviews recorded by producer Ev Draper for a series of local radio programmes to mark the Millennium, called The Century Speaks. These programmes, broadcast weekly from September 1999 through to the end of the century, form part of the BBC’s Millennium Oral History Project, a nationwide project to record memories of people of all ages and social backgrounds. Forty BBC local and regional stations have taken part to produce the largest oral history project in the history of radio. Every interview will eventually be stored in the National Sound Archive in the British Library, to form a Millennium Memory Bank.

The memories selected for this book are illustrated with contemporary photographs borrowed from the interviewees and the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, offering vivid insights into the lives of all kinds of Merseyside people, from all walks of life. They describe days long gone, the continual struggle to get by, events both comic and tragic, and finally give their thoughts on life as we approach the Millennium. They are a fitting reminder of how we lived in the twentieth century.