by Rowan Jeffery-Wall
Privatisation, de-regulation, commercialisation – the watchwords of the Thatcher and Major governments of the 1980s and 1990s. But, how were these broad-sweeping economic and social changes actually enacted and negotiated with those in business and industry? Enter the Westminster and City Conferences, chaired by Douglas French – whose large collection of cassette tapes I had the task of digitising this summer. These tapes feature audio recordings of the conferences, covering a wide range of topics including the privatisation of British Rail, Pension review, the privatisation of the Post Office, and much more.
This task involved sitting in the Cadbury Research Library and listening to these tapes whilst they were recorded to a digital file, taking notes on what was said and any things that may be useful for researchers who might want to access the Douglas French Archive in the future. This might not sound like the most exciting proposition; conferences could be up to 11 hours long, which means a lot of sitting in a basement listening to people discuss the finer points of financial reform or the franchising of British Rail services. However, once I got into the swing of things I found that there was much of interest to be found in these tapes.
Now, I must hold my hands up and admit that the content of the Westminster and City conferences doesn’t exactly line up with my own research interests. However, what I found was that listening to these tapes gave me a window into what was and still is a highly elite and exclusive culture. The conferences were a venue for representatives of government, finance, and industry to discuss and negotiate the implementation of government reform. What was surprising is that the influence of finance and industry wasn’t hidden, it was surprisingly explicit. More interesting for me personally, however, was the little details: the little things that were said during the conference that pointed to this elite culture that all, or at least most, participants at the conferences seemed to share. Rather than just noting down which acts or policies were referred to by which speakers during the conference I was surprised by some of the things I ended up noting down: a sexist remark here, a joke about accountants here, a reference to golf.
What I ended up realising was that although these conferences are ostensibly about the ways in which government interacted and negotiated with finance and industry, the tapes (many of which are still waiting to be digitised) offer such a broad scope for research. There is a great deal of insight to be gained in a large number of areas from these conferences, which cover an impressively wide range of topics. I was also surprised to hear the external events and issues that speakers referred to in passing, such as the re-unification of Germany or a British Rail strike. Although these references are seemingly innocuous, they point to what was seen as noteworthy by the participants at the conferences, a useful indicator of the kind of culture that prevailed at these events. Interacting with the cassettes as objects was also really interesting – the quality of tape used varied as time went on and technology improved, and it’s a stark reminder of how far technology has come when you’re faced with a stack of eight 90 minute cassettes, which consists of one conference.
The vast majority of my time working on the project was spent in the Cadbury Research Library – and for someone considering going on to postgraduate study more time getting experience with archives isn’t a bad thing. It was also really interesting to get an idea of the great deal of work that goes into preparing an archive for use by researchers. Two scholarships before mine have been dedicated to this purpose, and I doubt I’ll be the last. It’s a great honour to be involved in such a project as this, and it’s great to feel a sense of (at least partial) responsibility for the results of the project once it is completed. The team, Emma Barrett, Matthew Francis, and Helen Fisher in the archives, have been great and it’s been a highly rewarding experience to work with them.