Voices from the BBC Archives

Eyewitness: 1950-1999

Eyewitness accounts from the BBC Archive are at the heart of this unique history of the latter half of the 20th Century, narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith.

Joanna Bourke is Professor of History in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck College, where she has taught since 1992. 
 
Over the years, her work has ranged from the social and economic history of Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to social histories of the British working classes between 1860 and 1960s, to cultural histories of military conflict between the Anglo-Boer war and the present. In recent years, she has been researching the history of the emotions, particularly fear and hatred. She has also been exploring the history of sexual violence, asking questions such as 'in historical time, who is the rapist?" and "how have his (and occasionally her) violent acts been explained?". 
 
Her primary focus has been on British, American and Australian societies from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries.

Eyewitness accounts from the BBC Archive are at the heart of this unique history of the latter half of the 20th Century, narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith. 
 
The events of 1950-1999 are described by the people who saw them happen, from the Festival of Britain in 1951 through to dawn of a new millennium at the end of 1999. 
 
Inbetween are the eras of the Angry Young Men, the Teddy Boys and the Punk Rockers; the arrival of rock and roll and the permissive society; the advent of industrial strife in England and sectarian unrest in Northern Ireland; the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher; the miners’ strike, three day week and Winter of Discontent; the Queen’s Silver Jubilee; the IRA’s campaign of bombing and the eventual Good Friday agreement; the marriage of Prince Charles, the death of Princess Diana, the Poll Tax riots, and the British participation in wars in the Middle East and Bosnia. 
 
Events both joyful and sorrowful are illustrated with fascinating and rarely heard archive recordings, with a linking narration by the historia Joanne Bourke. Thought-provoking and moving, these are the voices of the past speaking to the present day.

Joanna Bourke

Tim Pigott-Smith

Voices from the BBC Archive

Eyewitness accounts from the BBC Archive are at the heart of this unique history of the first half of the 20th Century, narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith. 
 
The events of 1900-1949 are described by the people who saw them happen, from the death of Queen Victoria and accession of Edward VII through the First World War, the sinking of the Titanic, the General Strike and the Great Depression, to the Second World War and its aftermath. Events both joyful and sorrowful are illustrated with fascinating and rarely heard archive recordings, with a linking narration by the historia Joanne Bourke. Thought-provoking and moving, these are the voices of the past speaking to the present day.

Eyewitness 1900-1949

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