The Industrial Past in the Deindustrialised Present: A Cross-Generational Oral History of County Durham Mining Towns

Abstract

This thesis explores cross-generational experiences of deindustrialisation in County Durham, with a focus on three former coal mining villages: Bearpark, Brandon, and Langley Park. By analysing oral history life narratives from individuals connected to these communities, it investigates the ever-evolving relationship between collective memory, individual experiences, and the dominant narrative of deindustrialisation. Memory is a central theme, not only in comprehending how people conceptualise deindustrialisation but also in understanding industry’s place within collective memory. Adopting a longue durée approach, deindustrialisation is understood here as an ongoing process, that continues to shape individuals and communities, both in its emotional legacies and physical remnants. The thesis assesses how past industrial communities are reconstructed in the present and their contemporary relevance. In doing so, it seeks to interrogate how memories of the past are used to inform understandings of belonging, identity, commemoration, and politics. Moreover, while the conventional narrative of coal industry decline in the UK centres on the 1984-85 miners' strike and subsequent closures, deindustrialisation had been occurring in earnest in County Durham since the 1960s. This research therefore seeks to explore this longer timeline and understand its place within the prevailing strike-centric narrative. It also aims to critically interrogate the construction of ‘imagined mining communities’ in memory, by unpacking the more complex and nuanced responses to deindustrialisation within life narratives. Throughout, a spatial perspective is adopted, examining how industry shaped the social dynamics of villages within space. Rather than offering an exhaustive history of coal mining in County Durham, this thesis focuses upon how these villages were socially and spatially constructed around industry, as well as how this has been remembered, and how interviewees make sense of the transformations in space following deindustrialisation.