Helen Graham

Staff User

Day in My Life 2016 + 2026: The changing same

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2026: 'We want people to engage locally with us just as we are open to their localities across the world. We build our own translocal community in the wake of the EU referendum. We ask everyone who comes to bring something to share, their language, a dish – and we share with them the complex histories and cultures of York. No visitor can just see York as pretty old buildings any more.'
2026: ‘We want people to engage locally with us just as we are open to their localities across the world. We build our own translocal community in the wake of the EU referendum. We ask everyone who comes to bring something to share, their language, a dish – and we share with them the complex histories and cultures of York. No visitor can just see York as pretty old buildings any more.’

2016
Early and bright. Routines unfold. The towel. The stairs. The shower. Then as the hand slides round, gaining speed towards the precise moment of necessary exit. Then the rush. Teeth cleaning. The keys. Phone. Bag. Out the house. Notice three more houses on the street are for sale. And one more now for let. 17 minutes walk to the station down Cinder Lane.

The changing same. The flowers in a beautiful garden. The broken pattern in the pavement. The hollow sound of my feet on the foot bridge. The back passage between Holgate and Leeman Road once walled, once falling over, now more pragmatically fenced creating a visual connection between the railway maintenance sheds and the trickle of commuters heading for trains to offices in West Yorkshire. Then down the metal steps, across the car park. Nod to the attendant who ensures parking payment is given but also tidies, picks up litter, says hello to the regulars that park and walk across his patch. 4 minutes until the train leaves.

Practiced ticket buying. Muscle memory of the spatial choices needed to get a day return to Leeds. On the platform in time. Early enough (and late enough will do too) to get a seat. The odd public-private space of a commuting train carriage. Mutually respective of need to sleep, eat breakfast, apply make up, of laptop. The many working lives that compel travel and ‘being flexible’, all of us have the ability to focus anywhere and the need to use those 22 minutes to Leeds in some way. I work too and also watch the ripples of the seasons, catch a view of a favourite village, spire, field, sometimes a deer, usually rabbits. Each acting as a kind of visual echo of my childhood, of fields, and sunrise, and mists. My rural past in my present within and between two urban spaces. Then Leeds starts to emerges slowly between the fields and then faster as we enter the station. Happy to not yet entirely have to speak or to listen to others, before an equally happy day at the University of much of both.

Arriving back into York station. Busy train, though it is past commuters most popular home time. Seat on the aisle. Managed to work until after the final signal into the station, another email done and some sense of satisfaction. My day measured out in cups of tea and things struck off scrappy to do lists as well as good conversations and the constant flows of ideas and glimpses of possibilities. The working day over as the train stops. Rush. Laptop in cover. Then in bag. Grab scarf.

My bag is heavy with stuff bought at Marks and Spencer – at a price – at Leeds Station. The penalty of disorganization. The bustle of many people getting off a train and not knowing how to exit the station. But I become free as I head back out the back of the station with those heading to their cars and then the many fewer heading to Holgate or Acomb. The same path. Sometimes here, just before the footbridge over the tracks, I suddenly smell the earth on a damp yet warm day or fragrance of pollen. Over the bridge, past the train spotters. Then back way past the allotments [and fleetingly feel bad about the weeds that are probably growing in mine and my sisters allottment], the bowling club playing in whites, smiling at the dog walkers, down between the terraces and notice the beautiful purple flowery weeds growing in the crevices Victorian wall, never repointed.

Back through the door. Bread and salad plus expensive not-that-great cheese. Discuss the day – or we choose not to. The news. And then the sofa, bit knackered, but watch a television programme and a fictional world to which we have long committed and much discuss: beautifully made, complex, compelling, enriching. Then messing around, familiar jokes, always and every day slightly adjusted with a different texture, tone or context, and door shutting and light turning off, the improvisations of life lived together. Sleep.

2026
The alarm comes and goes. Some days I must get up straight away, and embrace the old routines, adjusted a bit for the greater regularity and speed of trains to Leeds. Yet it still takes 17 minutes to walk, though now Cinder Lane is populated by trees and planting and always alive with singing and movement. One of the most positive things to emerge from York Central has been the National Railway Museum working to keep with the rail industry in York as part of its living heritage approach. The NRM has become a place which connects collections and archive and with a lab for technological and engineering innovation with lots of apprenticeships and tourist actively invited to full engage with and understand all the crucial labour, from clearing to maintenance, which keeps the railways running.

Today, there’s no need to get up. I still love very much teaching but we brokered new contracts which meant we all work fewer hours so that there could be more members of teaching staff, this was part of the free education revolution in higher education which laid the way for student-led and more horizontal and collectivist ways of organizing learning. I am glad we no long grade students (something I have always found painful) but instead we offer students ongoing dialogue and interaction around their thinking and interests, something they also offer to us as staff in abundance. This way of working has radically reduced student anxiety, stress and mental health referrals but has also massive increased the space for students to show initiative, generate their own agendas and ultimately contribute so fully to their communities and places. We hope we will soon be moving to an even more open form, finally and fully realizing the idea of life long learning with Universities working in very strategic and embedded ways with the networks of community libraries that are volunteer run and create nodes and passage point between ideas and bodies of knowledge. Arts, humanities, cultures, philosophy, political theories are be part of everyone’s everyday life as we all also share the other forms of labour that keep the city working.

My big task today is to take part in the York Welcoming Collective. 1000s of us volunteer, as part of the work the city needs, to welcome visitors, tourists they were once called, to the city. Our aim is to develop interpersonal interactions with our visitors from all around the world so they enrich our lives and understanding and we can introduce them in a meaningful and enriched way of the city of York. I’ve learnt so much this way and now many of us have friends in China, Indian, Pakistan, Mexico and Russia as well as across Europe. We want people to engage locally with us just as we are open to their localities across the world. We build our own translocal community in the wake of the EU referendum. We ask everyone who comes to bring something to share, their language, a dish – and we share with them the complex histories and cultures of York. No visitor can just see York as pretty old buildings any more.

This new reciprocal relationship with visitors has been partly to underpin what was once called a tourist tax, but we now call the Visitor Gift. Money from our visitors is important. We now have a living wage service economy, so pubs, hotels, historic sites all pay their staff enough for them to live and thrive living in York. The Visitor Gift is used to invest in free life long education for all who live in York (for however long, Visitors take part too and often run short workshops sharing their cultures), youth groups, active community history and cultural groups and the network of free, open, indoor and outdoor public spaces across the city. It has also been crucial in creating a Housing and Land Trust that builds environmentally sustainable and low energy community housing and has developed older terraced housing which are now completely affordably on the city’s living wage. Funded the same way is a Community Land Trust which has enabled green spaces to be supported both in urban York and on the outskirts. This has updated the Green Belt idea for 21st Century. It has allow new villages with their own community and facilitates to be build and it has enabled a much enhanced and bio-diverse green spaces in between, the green wedge idea extended outwards.

Having welcomed a group of Chinese tourists, I learned a few more Mandarin words and got to practice my basic Mandarin language skills. I introduced them to the both the histories of feminism and the Women’s Liberation Movement in York and a taste of Centurion’s Ghost and Rudgate Ruby Mild. On my back, I stop by the train station which is now a really thriving hub, where we welcome visitors and can buy local food and local bread through outposts of York’s favorite shops. I cycle home, feeling very safe on the generous bike paths down Holgate Road and the Blossom Street.

Pass by Mum and Dad’s house and we walk out to the new woods on the edge of the city. Dad’s been part of the volunteer team researching the new and rich ecosystem and biodiversity created. The A64 seems to get quieter and quieter every time I come out here, as few and few people use cars now. Back to Holgate to see my sister Katie on the allotment (which is full of asparagus, broad beans as well as wildflowers and butterflies).

Head back home via meeting friends in a cooperatively run pub, The Golden Ball has inspired many more across the city. As I walk into the house I appreciate for the 1000th time the cracks and time marks in this house built in 1898 and cared for by only four previously inhabitants. The fitted cupboards made by the first owner, a joiner at the Carriageworks. The familiar pattern of sun coming through the triple glazed back doors open down to the summer, and casting different colours on the tiled floor. Now that housing is no longer a commodity – our terrace street is now one of the co-operatively owned Community Housing Trusts – all there is now is appreciating and working with the grain of the fabric within which your life is caught.

Then TV, thanks to subscription services there are still the richest, long form, dramas. The slow emergent revolution of the last 10 years was not televised as such but there is television in my utopia. Then the happy changing same as we go to bed.

My Future York at Utopia Fair, Somerset House (24th-26th June)

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The My Future York Utopian Council stationary as designed by Reet So.
The My Future York Utopian Council stationary as designed by Reet So.

Over the weekend some of the My Future York team will be at Somerset House for the Utopia Fair. We will be asking people to write letters to the Utopian Council of 2066.

Our invitation runs:

We are the Utopian Council. We are a collaboration of minds and hands. Together we are the ears to your queries, dreams and fears and the catalyst to your actions.

The idea of this ‘council’ derives from an ancient concept left behind from earlier days, where cities, towns and constituencies were ruled by tiered management structures and elected members. However the Utopian Council is open to your interpretation. There are no limits to our duties as a council, or yours as ‘the people’, we are here for you as you are for us.

Each letter will follow a certain form. It will ask the letter writer to imagine who they are contacting. We’ve proposed a structure. It begins with a positive opening: ‘I’m looking forward to…’ ‘there’s something I’d like to share’, ‘I’d like to praise’. Then there is the offer of a contribution: ‘I want to offer’, ‘would others like to hear’. Finally, a reciprocal offer: ‘let’s keep in touch’.

In July we will then convene the Utopian Council in the Council Chamber in York’s Guildhall for an afternoon of utopian storytelling, imagining what happened next in the case of each of the contributions and writing back to each participant.

The aim here is try and reformulate the relationship between people and those we elect and those the people we elect employ. We’re thinking of this partly in terms of a more distributed sense of agency and responsibility for positive change that belongs to all of us – this is why each form creates space for a volunteered contribution. But it is also about combining in different ways direct and representational forms of democracy. Seeing our representatives as catalyst, as facilitators, as connectors, as enablers, and as employing technical support to enable decisions and desired action. In this we may find ourselves playing around with notions of representation, perhaps an imaginary of a representative elected less to ‘speak on others behalf’ and more to be the re-teller and passer on, not only of stories but also sometimes of parables; as sharer of offers of help but also of ideas and ways of thinking.

The title of our Utopian Fair stall is directly inspired by our City of York Council Chamber.

From the City of York Council Chamber in the Guildhall.
From the City of York Council Chamber in the Guildhall.

The text of the signed reads: ‘No manifestation of feeling from the public will be allowed during the council meetings.’

Our stall will be called: ‘Manifestations of feelings from all people will be encourage at all times’.

Hope to see you there or at our Utopian Council storytelling session in York. Contact us to find out more.

Hungate: An analysis of the 1911 Census

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A post exploring the what the 1911 Census can tell us about Hungate written by Hungate Histories team member Catherine Sotheran

Bradley's Buildings in Hungate as pictured in July 1911. Photograph taken by the City Engineer. Image: York Explore Libraries and Archives.
Bradley’s Buildings in Hungate as pictured in July 1911. Photograph taken by the City Engineer. Image: York Explore Libraries and Archives.

Of the 63 properties in Garden Place and Hungate (just the main street, not the back yards), that I have found information about through the 1911 Census, there was a slaughter house, warehouse, Boy’s Club, Mission School above stables, a few shops and the rest were houses, 6 of which were tenements (2 or 3 separate households).

The number of adult (age 14 or over) occupiers was about 178 and about 112 children. Of the 54 families that had children about 35 of them had 1 or more children that had died by the time of the census, an average of 2 per family, the worst being 10 out of 15 children died and 7 out of 14 died. In general the houses don’t appear to be too overcrowded by the number of people per room, though I don’t know how big the rooms were, and I did find a family of 4 adults and 7 children living in 4 rooms. The majority of the parents are fairly young, under 45, though there are a few households that still have adult offspring living there and also a few 3 generation households.

Most of the houses are occupied by families and the vast majority were born in York, though I did find a wife born in Barbados, I’d love to know her story. Curiously one man had given his marital status as “uncertain”, apparently he didn’t know if his wife was alive or dead.

The majority of adults are in work, the most common occupations being in the Chocolate industries, general labouring jobs, laundry and other domestic type jobs, trades like painters, joiners, wheelwrights etc. but also a few more skilled jobs like a hairdresser, midwife, auctioneer, book binder, dressmaker, druggist and antique dealer. There also seemed to be quite a few people involved with fish, either as dealers or fish fryers.

A couple of families are still in the same houses 25 years later when the Compulsory Purchase Orders are served in 1936.

It would be interesting to contrast all this with the residents of the new Hungate developments, what sort of jobs they do, do they own or rent, are they locals etc. just over 100 years later. The Hungate Histories team have decided – as part of the research linking pasts with present and the future – to run a workshop inviting new residents of Hungate to join them (York Explore Libraries and Archives, 19th July, 5.30-8pm). if you live in Hunagte now and would like to join us, contact My Future York.

No. 2 + 4 Garden Place: The saga of 2 owners, some back windows and an unpaid bill

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Written by Catherine Sotheran as part of Hungate Histories Research Team

Catherine Sotheran unfolds the tale of what happened to 13A Hungate to improve the living conditions of 2 and 4 Garden Place.
Catherine Sotheran unfolds the tale of what happened to 13A Hungate to improve the living conditions of 2 and 4 Garden Place. As Catherine writes: ‘It’s only a small story about a landlord and an official body, but is part of the greater history of trying to improve people’s living conditions’.

I’ve been looking through some documents about a Closing Order (an order forbidding the occupation of a house until certain specified improvements are made, usually repairing the structure, internal fittings, drainage, ventilation and lighting), served on these properties and have discovered quite a saga, going on for 2 years.

It starts in January 1911. Firstly there seems to be a question of ownership, the bulk of the correspondence is with Mr George Garbutt of 20 Shambles, and Langbaraugh, Fulford, but there are also a couple of letters to George Wray, 51 Palmer Lane and his son. So the first question arises, who is Mr Wray?

Part of the work required to make the houses habitable is to insert windows into the back walls of the properties, however Mr Garbutt states he cannot do this as the yard behind the houses belongs to Mr. Turner. He is informed that the yard is for sale, but then is informed by Mr Turner’s son that he is dying, but afterwards they could come to terms. In the meantime Mr Garbutt would consult with his solicitor regarding the position of the wall and passage and see how he stood legally as regards to the back windows. In Dec 1911 Mr Garbutt was informed that the Health Committee did not propose to buy the yard leaving him free to negotiate for putting back windows into the houses into Mr Turner’s yard behind. The insertion of the windows was absolutely necessary to their continuance as dwelling houses.

The houses were inspected again in August 1912 when further work was required but there was no mention of the back windows so presumably they had been put in by then.

We then move to the beginning of 1913 when Mr Garbutt is sent a bill for £5. 00. 0 ½ for the demolition of the top storey of 13a Hungate, the house across the passage behind nos. 2 + 4, which belonged to Mr Turner, in order to bring sufficient light into his houses, (the halfpenny being part of the wage bill for the demolition ! ). Mr Garbutt says he knows nothing about it, doesn’t own 13a Hungate and seems to be refusing to pay the bill. It seems is if the Health Committee had taken it upon themselves to arrange the demolition ( with Mr Turner’s permission ) of the top storey in order to provide sufficient lighting and ventilation to the houses, and then ask him to pay the bill, after which they would send the order withdrawing the Closing order, though the houses should not have been inhabited until the withdrawing order had been sent. In June Mr Garbutt offers to pay £2 towards the expenditure but the committee were trying to get £2.10 from him.

The order withdrawing the Closing Order was issued in Feb 1914, so stating that the houses were ft for human habitation again.

So, did Mr Garbutt buy the yard, did they inform Mr Garbutt beforehand about the demolition,did he pay the bill in the end, and who was Mr Wray ? Also raises the issue of “right to light” and why Mr Garbutt had to buy the yard in order to put in the windows, unless I’m just misinterpreting the situation.As an addendum, the rents were increased after the renovations from 2/6 per week to 3/6 + 4/6.

It’s been interesting looking through the correspondence, some in Mr Garbutt’s own handwriting and piecing together the sequence of events, also seeing how much detail the inspections and subsequent repairs cover, even down to catches on cupboards, as well as the more extensive structural repairs needed. It’s only a small story about a landlord and an official body, but is part of the greater history of trying to improve people’s living conditions.


Post-script: As a follow up to my question about whether Mr, Garbutt bought the yard, I’ve since found a letter from 1935 stating that, Arthur Turner, the youngest and only surviving son of the late Wm. Joseph Turner lay claim to the land, so it seems Mr Garbutt did not buy it after all.

Housing: histories and futures

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Housing was a key issue that came up on the first My Future York stall we ran on Parliament Street in March. It was also the focus of a pilot project we undertook in November last year called ‘York and Housing: Histories Behind the Headlines’.

As part of the project, we invited a wide range of people to comment about the challenges York faces in terms of housing. Alison Sinclair in her piece ‘From New Earswick to Tang Hall: How York set the agenda for social housing’ explored York’s tradition of innovation in high quality and affordable housing. Darren Baxter and Alison Wallace, from the University of York’s Centre for Housing Policy, asked ‘What is it that drives unaffordability in York?’. Through a specific focused project using the city archives we explored some of the stories behind York’s big changes and trends in housing, Carmen Byrne, in ‘Emotional Trauma, Community Upheaval, Long Silences’ uncovered the impact on people of compulsory purchase in 1970s. We have built on these pieces through commissioning a new piece, published last week, by Richard Bridge, giving a specific account how legislative changes will impact on York as a livable city, ‘A Right to the City?: The new legislation driving York’s gentrification’.

One key theme that emerged through ‘York and Housing: Histories Behind the Headlines’ was about public engagement in future decision making. An openness to public discussion in the context of the new Local Plan and York Central was set out in a piece by Council Leader Chris Steward and Deputy Leader, Keith Aspden, ‘Don’t wait for us to come to you, please come and talk to us’ . Phil Bixby, Chair, York Environment Forum and partner in the My Future York project, suggests that, while there are a lot of external drivers, one of the reasons the York is experiencing a housing crisis is that the city has found it hard to make decisions, ‘The real crisis York faces is a crisis of decision-making’.

The histories, analysis and ideas contributing as part of the ‘York and Housing: Histories Behind the Headlines’ project are shaping My Future York. One way we’re building on the work we did in November is through the Hungate Histories project. You can find out more by join our public event sharing the findings of the Hungate Histories project on 21st June, 3.00-5.30pm.

Bishophill – futures that didn’t happen

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Buckingham Street, a street threaten with demolition for a multistory car park.
The plans for the Buckingham Street multistory car park.
Members of the Bishophill Action Group celebrate saving homes on Buckingham Street: ‘if the corporation had wanted the street, they could have got it a lot more easily than by calling it a slum. This has put our backs up. We feel they are using underhand methods.’ 20th September 1972

My Future York: First Planning Meeting

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Housing was an issue that surfaced repeatedly, from concern about York's street homelessness, to the need for more social housing and the affordability of private rented accommodation.
Housing was an issue that surfaced repeatedly on the Parliament Street stall, from concern about York’s street homelessness, to the need for more social housing and the affordability of private rented accommodation.

We had our first My Future York planning meeting on 30th April – we identified some emerging themes, clarified what the framework for the project and made some plans for the project’s next steps.

Emerging themes

A key aim of the project is to take really seriously any contribution made and so we began by looking over the postcards that people had left with us at the Parliament Street stall we ran on Good Friday.

We worked out there were some obvious clusters: Housing, Green Spaces, Family Activities, Democracy, valuing York’s heritage, Food, Transport.

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These are areas we will develop history projects around and public events to open up new approaches and ideas.

Beyond consultation

A key aim of the My Future York project is to develop different way for publics and communities to be involved in local democracy and local planning. Too often consultation means a choice between two or three options and doesn’t allow the people of an area or city to be involved in shaping the overarching framework.

In the planning meeting one idea crystallized that My Future York was about involving as many people as possible in, in effect, setting the brief for York’s future planning.

This way of thinking about what we’re doing also fully recognizes professional expertise and role. Once a brief is set then there will be a need for the city’s planners, designers and architects to help realize the city’s needs and visions.

A day in your life?

Then we were working out the best way of starting to openly – and with the whole city! – set the brief. We talked a lot about how to start and thought that, rather than ask people more abstract questions about the city as a whole, it might be best to ask people to think about what they do and would like to do.

To experiment a bit we’re just going to pilot with our friends and families two invitations:

2016: Tell the story of a day in your life.

2026: Imagine your ideal day – a work day or a day off – in ten year’s time.

We’ll see if these day-in-a-life invitations work. Any ideas for alternatives – or if you have a day in the life you want to share contact My Future York.

Hungate Histories: lots of paperwork…and people’s lives glimpsing through

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The Hungate Histories team match up the archive records with a map of the area.
The Hungate Histories team match up the archive records with a map of the area.

The last two Friday mornings have seen a group of us, all members of York Past and Present facebook group – Lianne Brigham, Richard Brigham, Helen Graham (also University of Leeds), Sue Hogarth, Victoria Hoyle (also City Archivist and University of York), Catherine Sotheran, Dave Ruddock with support from Justine Winstanley-Brown, Archivist (Civic and Public Records) – meeting up at the city archives to explore the histories of Hungate.

As with the My Future York project more generally our aims are to see how collaboratively producing histories of urgent issues facing York can enrich public debate so that more of us can be actively involved in shaping the future of the city.

The idea for focusing on Hungate came from the pilot project we did in November 2015, York and Housing: Histories Behind the Headlines. In November we took our first look at the archives to see what was there – what type of records, what types of ways of knowing – and then ran two public events to explore what we found with a wider group.

Having realized how big the task could be, we decided at the end of our first session to focus on two streets in Hungate – Hungate itself and Garden Place – and have started to use a wide variety of records to gather everything that we can find out about these streets, the forces that shaped them and which ultimately led to them being demolished.

To make the project managable, the team has decided to focus on two streets, Hungate and Garden Place. Image credit: York Explore
To make the project managable, the team has decided to focus on two streets, Hungate and Garden Place. Image credit: York Explore

The type of records available are: Maps, which show in detail specific properties and businesses; Health Department, we’ve so far found Health Inspections from the 1910s and Compulsory Purchases Orders from the 1930s. One of the team was working with a box of the personal correspondence with people who were being affected by the compulsory purchase orders – and there’s so much more to come out of look through these more personal stories. We’ve also started cross-referencing with electoral registers and register of business and pubs. There is also very clear legislative contexts to the different phases of work (as you can see on the House Inspection Record below)– and we’ll get started on the council minutes in the coming weeks. So on one hand we’re doing really focused history work, but with a much wider-angle lens on policy and decisions making.

An example of a housing inspection sheet. Image: York Explore
An example of a housing inspection sheet from 1936 used as part of the compulsory purchase of properties in the area. Image: York Explore

Sue Glenton has been researching the compulsory purchase orders: In the last two sessions I have discovered an enormous amount, about the way archiving can be used as a tool for research and lots of local info from the other members of the group. It is really absorbing and is very easy to get distracted as one bit links up with somebody else’s discovery. After looking at the 1936 reports on the square footage of dwellings in Hungate prior to the Compulsory Purchase Orders being issued, I have a mental picture of an official from the Health Committee almost stepping over the wasted bodies of TB sufferers to accurately measure the rooms. Then returning to the  office to record this info in copperplate writing while people lived in squalor. It was a different world and comes home to me vividly after looking at these records. Fascinating!

Richard Brigham has been looking specifically at the maps: I think what has surprised me so far is the dis-organisation of things that should have been known, housing was not only in poor condition but also lived in by a wide variety of numbered people, (as little as 2 in one house and as much as 5-7 in others). The variety of places co-existing in one place was profound, Gas works, mills, brick works and homes all in one section of the City and ALL working within feet of each other, It’s clear to say that Health and Health and Safety clearly did not have any place in this time frame of life living in Hungate! Yet as bad as things were there was clearly a camaraderie within the community.’

Lianne Brigham, who has been looking at a mixture of health reports, environmental health inspections and compulsory purchase orders: ‘What has surprised me with working with the archives is not only the abundance of paper work there is but the amount of houses there were in Hungate. Ok we have had to narrow our research down… but in no way does this mean that task is going to be any easier. Really enjoying it so far.’

Helen Graham has been taking responsibility for scanning, so has seen lots of different things that the group have dug up: ‘I think what stunned me from reading the variety of materials in the archive is both how weak and how powerful government was – and how it was changing in the early 20th Century. It is clear, in the days before the land registry, the Health Department simply didn’t know who owned properties and were seeking this knowledge so they could start to regulate quality of house and ultimately, three decades later, buy the housing stock up to demolish it. It raises questions about what government does and can do – clearly massive leaps were being made in public health and working ‘on behalf of’ and ‘for the good of’ a wider population but the archives also indicate how hard bureaucracies find to deal with specific people and their specific needs’.

If you got any memories of Hungate or Garden Place – or what to hear more about the project – contact the group.

The Hungate Histories team will be running an event to share their work on 21st June, 3.30-5pm. You can book a free place via eventbright.

My Future York: Call for volunteer archive researchers

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St Sampson's Square before pedestrianisation - what are the histories of travel in and around York and what might be future solutions?
St Sampson’s Square before pedestrianisation – what are the histories of travel in and around York and how might we imagine future solutions?

 

We are calling for volunteer researchers who are interested in the urgent issues facing York today – and who have the skills to develop compelling research and digital content to illuminate and share the histories of these issues.

  • You would join the My Future York research team.
  • You would pick an urgent issue facing the city.
  • You would use the city archives and other sources to build complex and evocative histories of these urgent issues. (This would be more akin to developing quality journalistic approaches to history than writing a PhD. Good skills for people wanting to work in museums or public history roles!)
  • You would develop digital content (social media and interpretive blogs) to communicate these issues with local people and to enrich and open up debate.
  • You would work with the My Future York research team to develop and feed into our public events.

Examples of issues might include – but you can suggest your own:

  • green belt and green spaces
  • homelessness
  • drinking / night life
  • housing
  • traffic and public transport

We would help you to develop:

  • archive-based research skills
  • interpretive and digital content skills

Travel expenses within York and refreshments will be provided.

To volunteer or find out more, contact the My Future York team via researcher Helen Graham, Director, Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage, University of Leeds

h.graham@leeds.ac.uk