« Tales of The Rails » : les récits de vie des cheminots anglais

Selon le catalogue raisonné en trois volumes des autobiographies ouvrières anglaises publié sous la direction de J. Burnett, D. Vincent & D. Mayall, The Autobiography of the Working Class : an Annotated Critical Bibliography, il y eut presque deux mille autobiographies ouvrières publiées avant 1985. Dans cet ensemble, 65 textes (3,25 %) ont été écrits par des cheminots. Citant quelques extraits de textes choisis, cet article présente une typologie détaillée de ces autobiographies et de leurs auteurs. Parmi ceux-ci, près de la moitié sont des agents de l’Exploitation (chauffeurs, mécaniciens, chefs de train, atteleurs, soit 30,46 %), 13 appartiennent à la Voie ou au Matériel (ajusteurs, ouvriers, soit 20 %) et 12 ont occupé des postes de responsabilité (chefs de gare, soit 18 %). Deux seulement, enfin, sont des femmes. Parmi ces autobiographies, on peut distinguer trois genres principaux. Le premier (13,20 %) est celui des textes retraçant des parcours menant aux divers statuts de dirigeants du mouvement ouvrier (membres du parlement, dirigeants syndicaux). Le second (21,32 %) rassemble les récits de vie intégrale d’ouvriers (y compris les études, la famille, les centres d’intérêts). Enfin, le troisième genre (31,48 % du corpus) s’adresse aux enthousiastes de « steam » – admirateurs des locomotives à vapeur –, les récits se limitant à l’expérience de la conduite.According to The Autobiography of the Working Class : an Annotated Critical Bibliography, edited by J. Burnett, D. Vincent & D. Mayall, nearlytwothousands autobiographies of workerswerepublishedbefore 1985. In that set, 65 texts (3,25 %) have been written by railwaymen. Quotingsomesignificantexcerpts, this article presents a detailedtypology of these autobiographies and of theirauthors. Nearlyhalf of the latter are members of the train crew or belong to the OperationDepartment (drivers, stokers, conductors, yard men, thatis 30.46 %), 13 wereemployed in rollingstock’s or tracks’ maintenance and repair (metalworkers, trackmen, thatis 20 %) and 12 occupiedresponsible positions (station masters, 18 %). Onlytwo, finally, are women. Wecandistinguishthree main categoriesamongthese narratives. The first (13,20 %) gathers the textsdescribing courses towardvariousstatuses of labour movement leaders (MP’s, trade union leaders). The second one (21,32 %) bringstogetherintegral life tales of workers (includingstudies, family, hobbies). At last, the third genre (31,48 %) addresses the « steam » fans – locomotive enthusiasts – the narrative beingmost of the time limited to drivingexperience

The First World War Centenary in the UK: ‘A Truly National Commemoration’?

Prime Minister David Cameron has called for ‘a truly national commemoration of the First World War’. This article shows this to be problematic, politicised and contested. This is in part due to the elision of English and British histories. Scottish, Welsh and Irish responses are noted, and the role and commemorations of ‘our friends in the Commonwealth’. There are tensions around interpretations of empire and race. There has been a failure to appreciate that the debates about the legacies of the First World War are deeply entangled with those of colonialism

Monument and material reuse at the National Memorial Arboretum

This is the author's manuscript of an article published in Archaeological Dialogues.Exploring the relocation and reuse of fragments and whole artefacts, materials and monuments in contemporary commemorative memorials in the United Kingdom (UK), this paper focuses on the National Memorial Arboretum (Alrewas, Staffordshire, hereafter NMA). Within this unique assemblage of memorial gardens, reuse constitutes a distinctive range of material commemoration. Through a detailed investigation of the NMA’s gardens, this paper shows how monument and material reuse, while used in very different memorial forms, tends to be reserved to commemorate specific historical subjects and themes. Monument and material reuse is identified as a form of commemorative rehabilitation for displaced memorials and provides powerful and direct mnemonic and emotional connections between past and present in the commemoration through peace memorials, of military disasters and defensive actions, the sufferings of prisoners of war, and atrocities inflicted upon civilian populations. In exploring monument and material reuse to create specific emotive and mnemonic fields and triggers, this paper engages with a hitherto neglected aspect of late 20th- and early 21st-century commemorative culture

The Last Post: British Press Representations of Veterans of the Great War

Harry Patch (1898–2009) was the last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches of the Western Front, entering the media spotlight in 1998 when he was approached to contribute to the BBC documentary Veterans. Media coverage of Patch and the cultivation of his totemic status were particularly prodigious in anticipating and marking his death, producing a range of reflections on its historical, social and cultural significance. Focusing on the British popular press, this article examines media coverage of the last decade of Patch’s life. It considers the way in which the Great War is memorialised in the space of public history of the media in terms of the personalisation and sentimentalisation of Patch, exploring how he serves as a synecdoche for the millions of others who fought, how he embodies ideas of generational and social change, and how the iconography of the Great War’s contemporaneous representation works in the space of its memorialisation

Antifascism, the 1956 Revolution and the politics of communist autobiographies in Hungary 1944-2000

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in Europe-Asia Studies © 2006 University of Glasgow; Europe-Asia Studies is available online at http://www.informaworld.com.Using oral history, this contribution explores the reshaping of individuals' public and private autobiographies in response to different political environments. In particular, it analyses the testimony of those who were communists in Hungary between 1945 and 1956, examining how their experiences of fascism, party membership, the 1956 Revolution and the collapse of communism led them in each case to refashion their life stories. Moreover, it considers how their biographies played varying functions at different points in their lives: to express identification with communism, to articulate resistance and to communicate ambition before 1956; to protect themselves from the state after 1956; and to rehabilitate themselves morally in a society which stigmatised them after 1989.I didn't use this word 'liberation' (felszabadulás), because in 1956 my life really changed. Everybody's lives went through a great change, but mine especially. … I wasn't disgusted with myself that I had called the arrival of the Red Army in 1945 a liberation, but [after 1956] I didn't use it anymore

Creativity and commerce: Michael Klinger and new film history

The crisis in film studies and history concerning their legitimacy and objectives has provoked a reinvigoration of scholarly energy in historical enquiry. 'New film history' attempts to address the concerns of historians and film scholars by working self-reflexively with an expanded range of sources and a wider conception of 'film' as a dynamic set of processes rather than a series of texts. The practice of new film history is here exemplified through a detailed case study of the independent British producer Michael Klinger (active 1961-87) with a specific focus on his unsuccessful attempt to produce a war film, Green Beach, based on a memoir of the Dieppe raid (August 1942). This case study demonstrates the importance of analysing the producer's role in understanding the complexities of film-making, the continual struggle to balance the competing demands of creativity and commerce. In addition, its subject matter - an undercover raid and a Jewish hero - disturbed the dominant myths concerning the Second World War, creating what turned out to be intractable ideological as well as financial problems. The paper concludes that the concerns of film historians need to engage with broader cultural and social histories. © 2010 Taylor & Francis

Visual consumption, collective memory and the representation of war

Conceiving of the visual as a significant force in the production and dissemination of collective memory, we argue that a new genre of World War Two films has recently emerged that form part of a new discursive “regime of memory” about the war and those that fought and lived through it, constituting a commemoration as much about reflecting on the present as it is about remembering the past. First, we argue that these films seek to reaffirm a (particular conception of a) US national identity and military patriotism in the post–Cold War era by importing World War Two as the key meta‐narrative of America’s relationship to war in order to “correct” and help “erase” Vietnam’s more negative discursive rendering. Second, we argue that these films attempt to rewrite the history of World War Two by elevating and illuminating the role of the US at the expense of the Allies, further serving to reaffirm America’s position of political and military dominance in the current age, and third, that these films form part of a celebration of the generation that fought World War Two, which may accord them a position of nostalgic and sentimental greatness, as their collective spirit and notions of duty and service shine against the foil of what might frequently be seen as our own present moral ambivalence

Narrative, metaphor and the subjective understanding of identity transition

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.This paper examines the relevance of employing an oral history method and narrative interview techniques for business historians. We explore the use of oral history interviews as a means of capturing the expression of subjective experience in narrative and metaphor. We do so by analysing interviews concerning the transition of East German identities following reunification with West Germany. Self-expression emerges as critical to the vital identity work required for social integration following transformation, metaphor providing a means of articulating deep-rooted patterns of thought. We demonstrate that employing an oral history methodology can benefit business historians by affording access to the human dimension of a research project, unlocking the subjective understanding of experience by low-power actors among the non-hegemonic classes. Hence, employing an oral history methodology provides a valuable means of countering narrative imperialism, exemplified here by the dominant West German success story grounded in Western-style individual freedom

Understanding management gurus and historical narratives: The benefits of a historic turn in management and organization studies

A historic turn in organization studies requires a basic theoretical understanding of ‘doing history’ and an appreciation of the centrality of narrative in history. Following the cultural turn in history, narrativist historians and philosophers of history such as Hayden White, Frank Ankersmit and Paul Ricoeur have made the case that narrative is an essential and unavoidable component in history. We demonstrate the persuasive capacity of narrative through a narrativist critique of three best-selling ‘management gurus’. This analysis illustrates the following: (1) the narrative features of popular organizational theories; (2) the basis of the success of guru literature; and (3) why gurus and organizational scientists themselves do not understand the narratological mechanisms behind their success. Finally, we maintain that historical narrativism offers the possibility for positioning organizational history as a highly relevant field for management academics, gurus and even managers, providing support for a historic turn