Tape recordings in the Library
The Library holds hundreds of cassette tapes, many of them containing interviews with Library founders Eddie and Ruth Frow, and many more with other activists.
Just some of our tapes
About 600 tapes are listed on our library catalogue. These may contain music - for example we have several renderings of the Internationale. We have tapes of lectures, talks, discussions, conferences.
But probably the most interesting tapes are those which contain oral history - interviews with people who describe their lives, experiences and beliefs. There are about 200 of these. They include tapes of two people who were active in political theatre - Joan Marshall and Henry Suss. There is an interview with political activist Hilda Crompton. And there is a tape of Bernard McKenna, who fought with the International Brigade in Spain. You can search for these on our catalogue by typing in the term oral history and looking at the results in the archives option
Everyone is welcome to come and listen to any of these recordings here at the Library.
Copies of our tapes are held at the North West Sound Archive, which was based at Clitheroe Castle but has now closed. The copies are now housed at Manchester's Archives Plus.