Meet Our Networkers in North East England

Trustee & Regional Adviser, North East

Adam Bell

I love oral history, and I have the pleasure and privilege of being paid to do it as an important part of my job! I’m a social history museum curator with almost 20 years’ experience of working with communities and individuals to tell their stories through museum exhibitions, and preserving their heritage in museum permanent collections.

I have lots of experience of working on oral history projects in the North East, on subjects including shipbuilding and ship repair, coal mining, travelling funfairs, football, COVID-19, women’s working lives, and others besides.

I recorded my first oral history at about the age of 11, on a C90 cassette tape. The interviewee was my grandfather Gary, and the topic was his experiences as a child in WW2. I still cherish those first recordings to this day.

I studied history at uni, specialising in social and cultural history. My master’s dissertation was on the extent and use of oral history in Northern Ireland’s registered museums.