The purpose of this website is to tell the story of Liverpool through the lives of the people who experienced it.

Liverpool People’s History is an open-ended project. We’ve started with a collection of articles on a range of topics but we’re planning to add more. We’re hoping it will also be a collaborative project, and participation  by the public is strongly encouraged (see page on how to get involved).

We’re focusing on the last decades of the 20th century – which for growing numbers of people happened before they were born. Meanwhile, there are still plenty of others who remember the events and can talk about them. Their numbers are diminishing, though.

The 1970s in particular were a turbulent time for Liverpool marked by industrial strife, factory closures and the uprooting of communities by slum clearance. The “people’s history” of that period is the story of how the public viewed it and responded to it.

The resulting upheaval spurred a remarkable level of organised resistance in both the workplace and the community. Much of the time it was a losing battle but adversity also had an energising effect. It brought a new vibrancy to popular culture and there were some notable experiments in alternative ways of doing things – such as the Scotland Road Free School and the workers’ takeover of the Fisher Bendix factory in Kirkby.

Much of the grassroots activity was recorded in small-circulation “alternative” or “community” newspapers. They had sprung up in many parts of Britain around this time because developments in printing technology (and volunteer labour) made it possible to produce them at low cost. Merseyside had several, mostly circulating in a particular district but there was also a city-wide paper – the Liverpool Free Press (1971-1977).

I was one of the journalists who produced the Free Press and I had kept a complete set, stashed away in a plastic carrier bag, along with random copies of the Tuebrook Bugle, the Mersey People and the Scottie Press. Needless to say, they were in a fragile state, so I decided to get them scanned and posted in an online archive where anyone interested can now easily view them.

While working on that I had a conversation at the Bluecoat with Bryan Biggs who had drawn cartoons for the Free Press in the 1970s. Reflecting on that part of the city’s history we began to feel the archive could become a starting-point for exploring it further – and the idea for a “people’s history” of the period emerged.

Following that, we had a series of discussions with individuals who we thought might be interested and several agreed to write articles or help in other ways.

At present, Liverpool People’s History is operating informally, with no particular organisational structure (and we’re not sure if it needs one). Moving forward, we’re proposing to hold online meetings to discuss topics for future articles and, hopefully, find people to research or write about them. Subscribe to the website if you would like to be invited.

Brian Whitaker