An important social history resource, based on extensive oral history interviews with former national servicemen, is now available through the Data Archive Service.

Professor Peter Gurney has deposited a significant catalogue of life story transcripts with the Data Archive Service, University of Essex. Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the oral history interviews with (mainly working-class) ex-national servicemen formed the basis of his recent book on conscription ‘National Service Life Stories: Masculinity, Class and the Memory of Conscription in Britain’, which he co-authored with Matthew Grant (Reader in History, University of Essex), and Joel Morley (Professor of British History, University of Bristol). We previously covered the publication of their book here.

‘National Service Life Stories’ is based on extensive oral history interviews conducted with 108 research participants between 2016 and 2018. The men interviewed were born between 1927 and 1939 and conscripted into the British Army between 1945 and 1963. Around 2.3 million were called up between the end of the Second World War and 1963, when conscription finally ended. The interviews cover ex-national servicemen – mainly from working-class backgrounds – across five different regions in Britain: the Glasgow area, north-east England, the West Midlands, south Wales and south-east England. Professor Gurney notes that the authors wanted to discover how conscription shaped their feelings about masculinity, class, and the British character. National service was, therefore, a defining feature for a generation of young men in post-war Britain.

[National Service Life Stories] creates an important oral history archive and glimpse into attitudes about Britain’s contemporary politics.

Professor Helen Parr, University of Limerick

The interviews are a fascinating resource for historians studying modern British history and complements our understandings of class, masculinity, citizenship, popular memory, race, immigration, and Britishness. Professor Gurney hopes that the resources are widely used. Users are required to register with the UKDA in order to access the interviews, but all the transcripts (amounting to c. 3.5-4 million words) can be downloaded. The interview transcripts can be accessed here.

References:

Interview transcripts can be accessed here.

Further information on the project can be found here.

Their book is available for purchase here.

Helen Parr’s book review in the journal, Contemporary British History, can be accessed here.