QUB oral historians partner with BBC

Four PhD students working on oral history projects at Queen’s met with BBC Radio Producers on March 31st, to pitch ideas for radio documentaries. Jack Crangle, Pete Hodson, Sam Manning and Rachel Wallace impressed the BBC Panel of Conor Garrett, Regina Gallen, Michael Tumelty (pictured above) with their concepts. Jack pitched an idea based on the experiences of the Vietnamese ‘boat people’ who found themselves living in Craigavon in the 1980s. Pete developed a documentary idea, examining the impact of deindustrialistaion on the mining village of Easington in Durham. An exploration of the fascinating social history of Belfast’s Holyland district was offered by Sam. Rachel drew on her research of LGBT activism, in offering a documentary on Belfast’s Europa Hotel as an LGBT space during the Troubles. The BBC producers were given a great deal to mull over and are now considering the option of commissioning one of the four ideas.  The pitches were part of an on-going partnership between Sean O’Connell and the BBC that aims to convert cutting edge student oral history based research into documentary format.