Volunteer Reflections: Malcolm Lisle

Malcolm Lisle being recorded by Sajid Ali. March 2014

Photo: Our Broomhall

Malcolm Lisle, Benji Hamilton and another volunteer on the Hanover Flats roof. August 2014

Photo: Jepoy Sotomayor

I have always had an interest in history. Sometimes people joke about me being really old as if I could remember some of the things in the past that I love to talk about. I have a collection of books about the history of Gateshead and Newcastle, where I grew up, as well some articles from websites that were produced about the area. Some of these websites are no longer around and I have kept them for many years on my memory stick. My grandfather always used to talk about the motorbike he had before the war and I read a lot about this. I also spent some time on Wikipedia looking up what he said about his grocery shop in the 1930s selling four different kinds of margarine. My father was a television engineer from the 1960s to the 1990s and I read quite a lot of the books he had as an apprentice so I know a lot about the history of radio and television.

I read about the Broomhall project on Broomhall news and thought this would be a great way for me to develop my research skills. I have spent a long time taking photographs of local buildings and sending them to the archive where perhaps one day they will be like the photographs I look at from 100 years ago on websites and in old books. I wrote some articles for the website about the history of the area and the days when schools were built next to factory chimneys and back to back houses. I like to imagine what my life would have been like if I had been born 100 years earlier. I might have been a pupil at Springfield School in the 1875. There is a plaque on the wall that tells you when the school was built. I wonder what school would have been like then?

I discovered quite a lot about Broomhall I didn’t know and many interesting things were manufactured there. I did a lot of my research from old trade directories. The adverts can say a great deal about working life and the technology that was around at the time. Not much was made by big international brands but a lot of small workshops existed. Sometimes these would be in residential areas – the division of a city into industrial estates and housing estates is an idea that came about in the 1930s. Many people contacted the history group and told us of their memories of factories. Some of them even knew family members who had owned them. This was all very useful as it gives the researcher a place to start from. You need some basic information like a company name or a story and then you know what to look for in the local library or on the internet.

Click the links below to see and read Malcolm’s other stories and photos about Broomhall:

Malcolm’s Explorations in BroomhallHanover Methodist ChurchA. E. Shearer & Co.

A Punch Bowl set by Viners of SheffieldCarpet Beating Works: 1901Carpet Beating Works: 1902