International Brigade Memorial Trust
This month the IBMT will begin publishing online the audio files from our collection of over 90 interviews with International Brigaders and people involved in the Aid Spain movement. Those interviewed include Bob Cooney, Harry Fraser, Nan Green, Peter Kerrigan, Maurice Levine, Winifred Sandford, Mary Slater, Lillian Urmston, Sam Wild and many more.
New interviews will be uploaded on a monthly basis, along with an introduction to the interviewee and a short transcribed excerpt, and will be streamable online in the Education > Interviews section of the IBMT website.
Previously referred to as the Ashton Tapes, the collection of interviews were undertaken during the mid-to-late 1970s, many by Dave Corkill and Stuart Rawnsley for their 1981 book ‘The Road to Spain’. The Imperial War Museum digital collection holds duplicates of some of the interviews. The original reel-to-reel tapes were held by the Tameside Local Studies Centre in Ashton-under-Lyne before they were acquired by the IBMT and converted to CD format. We are now able to present the complete collection as digital audio files on our website.
The first interview to go up is with Nan Green, volunteer medical administrator on the Ebro front and later Secretary of the International Brigade Association. It is available to stream from Wednesday 8 March, coinciding with International Women's Day, on the interview page here.
Posted on 7 March 2023.
