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Memories of childhood in post-war Grimsby

Memories of childhood in post-war Grimsby

Smith, John A. (2014) Memories of childhood in post-war Grimsby. Childhood in the Past, 7 (2). pp. 82-94. ISSN 1758-5716 (doi:https://doi.org/10.1179/1758571614Z.00000000019)

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Abstract

This paper details the vivid memories of the author’s childhood in the fishing port of Grimsby, shortly after the Second World War. It was a time of shortages, overcrowding, improvisation and cannibalisation of anything that could be re-used. In time it became a period of reconstruction but not without its upheavals and difficulties. It begins in the ‘old town’ of workers’ small terrace houses, typically in a poor state of repair. Then it moves to the ‘new’ council estates. Similarly, the narrative also begins with a ‘Victorian’ technology of steam, coal and horses with very few petrol-engined vehicles and moves to the very beginnings of early consumer society. The principal analytic content of the paper concerns the status of what is clearly a ‘personal history’ – if that is not too great a contradiction – or as the author suggests: my story. The obvious ‘critical’ response – that it could have been otherwise – is contrasted against the suggestion that this story is a non-negotiable foundation of the author’s identity and that this ‘critical’ response is not appropriate. Some of the interdisciplinary options thrown up by this problem are considered.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Childhood in the Past on 24 Oct. 2014, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1758571614Z.00000000019
Uncontrolled Keywords: agonic solidarity, hedonic solidarity, path depency, conbstrained possibility
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences
Last Modified: 05 Oct 2016 09:43
URI: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/15260

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