Heritage Lottery Fund: Rewinding the Welfare State: A Social History of the North East on Film

I curated a screening tour of archived regional television broadcasts and local community films through fifteen towns to disseminate the welfare state’s development in North East England

In partnership with the North East Film Archive, I match funded £2,500 from my research centre with the 2019 Heritage Lottery Fund project Britain on Film. Here I curated and toured a screening of archived regional television broadcasts through fifteen North Eastern towns to over six hundred people. At each screening, I disseminated my medical humanities research on how welfare state services have developed locally since 1945. I also provided bespoke screenings to Middlesbrough Town Council for staff training and informed a Citizens Advice Bureau initiative educating service users in personal debt.

By the end of my funding 93% of audiences were likely to attend a future event and 89% learnt something new about the history of the welfare state and the help available. A common theme from the public feedback was that my ‘insightful’, ‘interesting’, ‘informative’, ‘inspirational’ and ‘politically balanced’ approach was appreciated as attendees ‘learnt lots about housing and welfare’ in relation to ‘local idiosyncrasies’.