Research: Passions of Youth
A series of projects exploring the histories and heritage of childhood and youth in Manchester and Salford from the 1940s to the 2000s.
Summary
Research summary
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April 2014 - ongoing
Passions of Youth is a series of projects using film to connect children and adults in Manchester and Salford with local community history.
The first project focused on working-class young men, helping them explore how previous generations used their leisure time. Working with historians, youth workers and archivists, the teenagers were trained in creative activities, visited heritage venues and made films that were shown in their locally and internationally - improving their confidence and increasing their educational aspirations. The project was shortlisted for an Emerald Publishing International Impact Award and commended by the National Archives. Its approach - giving participants a creative role the research - has been adopted by other universities, the voluntary sector and schools.
In 2014, another documentary film was made by local residents - funded by the Arts and Humanities Research council (AHRC), Forever Young is an impressionistic portrayal of how teenagers spend their free time from the 1940s to the 2000s. Based on North West Film Archive (NWFA) footage and oral testimony, it was shown at the British Academy-funded Being Human festival.
The latest project, Returning Home, involves adults from Manchester and Salford who were sent on ‘health holidays’ to Swiss foster families for three months in 1948. Some 70 years later they made Returners’ Stories, the first documentary to commemorate the Swiss Red Cross initiative. The film includes North West Film Archive footage of the children’s return to Manchester.
The project team is now collaborating with the Swiss Red Cross to encourage other British families to do their own research. Children who went to Switzerland and their families will get help to access their records and search for the Swiss foster families who welcomed them.
The Passions of Youth research area has had lasting impact on cultural heritage, youth partnerships and local communities in Greater Manchester. It shows how creative approaches, archive materials and cross-generational research can open up new ways of thinking about childhood and youth and enrich public understanding.
Research outputs
Book
- Tebbutt, M (2012) Being Boys: Youth, Leisure and Identity in the Inter-War Years, Manchester University Press
Academic papers
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Andrews, M, Fleming, NC and Morris, M (2020) Histories, Memories and Representations of being Young in the First World War. M. Andrews, Maggie, N. Fleming, M. Morris. In: Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War. Palgrave Macmillan,
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Tebbutt, M (2017) Listening to Youth? BBC Youth Broadcasts during the 1930s and the Second World War. History Workshop Journal 84(84), pp 214-233
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Tebbutt, M (2020) ‘Fears of the Dark: Children, Young People and the Cinema in World War One’. In: Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War. Palgrave Macmillan
- Bourne, D and Tebbutt, M (2015) ‘Shebeens and black music culture in Moss Side, Manchester, in the 1950s and 1960s’ Special Edition on local music cultures in the Manchester Region History Review, edited by Professor Dave Russell
- Tebbutt, M (2016) Making Youth: A History of Youth in Modern Britain, London: Palgrave Macmillan
- Tebbutt, M (2017) ‘From “Marriage Bureau” to “Points of View”. Changing patterns of advice in teenage magazines: Mirabelle, 1956-1977’, in Kidd, A and Tebbutt, M (eds.) People, Places and Identities: Themes in British Social and Cultural History, 1700s-1980s (Manchester: Manchester University Press)
- Tebbutt, M (2020) ‘Questioning the rhetoric of British borstal reform in the 1930s’ Historical Journal, 63 (3), pp 710-731
- Tebbutt, M (2020) ‘Fears of the Dark: Children, Young People and the Cinema in World War One’, in Maggie Andrews, Neil Fleming, Marcus Morris (eds), Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War (Palgrave Macmillan)
Films
Team
Funding
With funding from
Arts & Humanities Research Council
The British Academy
Contact
Contact us
For general enquiries about the Youth, Gender and Sexuality research group, please contact its leads, Dr April Pudsey and Dr Craig Griffiths.
