You are right to celebrate the value of recording the experiences of ordinary people (Editorial, 11 August). But we should not forget Mass-Observation, described on the cover of Tom Harrison and Charles Madge’s book Britain (1939) as “a movement started early in 1937 by two young men and now embracing 2,000 voluntary observers all over the country … to study everyday behaviour in Britain – The Science of Ourselves”. They covered topics such as All-in Wrestling, the social history of the Lambeth Walk, people’s attitudes to Chamberlain and the threat of war, and what actually happens at 11:00 on Armistice Day, all with extensive quotes from the unpaid observers. This is certainly “history from below”, two decades before the 1950s.
Alan Trangmar
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
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