Our Lives, Our Stories with Carl Chinn
Our Lives, Our Stories is hosted by social historian and writer Carl Chinn MBE, whose life's work has been dedicated to bringing to the fore the lives and stories of people too often left out of traditional history books. This podcast is built on a simple but powerful belief: that history must be democratised and that every person's story matters. In each episode, Carl sits down with guests ranging from well-known figures to community activists and changemakers, exploring the personal histories, experiences, challenges and moments that have shaped who they are.
Episodes
Larry Hanks
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Larry Hanks, one of the four founders of Birmingham's Pen Museum and, a quarter of a century after it opened, still one of its most devoted volunteers. Larry grew up in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham. Larry talks about starting as a trainee draughtsman, and how he learnt that the man who swept the floor had just as much to teach him. He remembers being a
Joe Lycett: Replay
From our archive: first released in March, Carl Chinn sits down with comedian, artist and TV presenter Joe Lycett to talk family history, building a comedy career, creativity, and what it means to be a champion for Birmingham.Inspired to tell your own story?Free guides at our website https://ourlives-ourstories.comMy Life, My Story is a guided legacy journal for writing down the memories that matt
Peter Connolly
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Peter Connolly, a publican with Irish roots who opened Nortons in Digbeth and went on to take over The Anchor, one of Birmingham's best-loved Victorian pubs.Peter talks about growing up in a second generation Irish family, finding his way to Digbeth's Irish Quarter, opening Nortons on Friday the 13th just months before the pandemic, bringing a hist
Patricia White MBE
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Patricia White MBE, a Hodge Hill-born Brummie who set up Birmingham's first Trussell Trust food bank in Ladywood and went on to found Suited for Success, a charity helping people into work.Patricia talks about growing up with her mom and two sisters in a family with roots in St Kitts and Nevis, ten years at BBC WM, a secondment with the BBC World Servi
Lauren Broxton
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Lauren Broxton, a bespoke leather designer and maker from Walsall who has been drawing, sketching, and making things out of whatever she could find since she was a girl. She has also been one of the key campaigners that saved Walsall Leather Museum from moving to a new building.Lauren grew up in Rushall, a borough that had watched its industry slip away. S
Paul Smith
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Paul Smith, a retired Birmingham firefighter and one of the people who helped turn the city's St Patrick's Parade into one of the largest in the world. Born to a Dublin mom and dad and raised in a council flat in Longbridge.On 9/11, Paul and his watch stood in a fire station in Northfield and watched 343 New York firefighters lost in a single day. Feeling
Paul Masefield
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Paul Masefield, a former professional English footballer and TV pundit, who grew up a few doors from Carl in Birmingham and has spent more than twenty years building a life in Asia. Paul's football started with his dad Stuart, a fine semi professional centre forward whose career was cut short by injury, and with his grandad Frank, who drove him to gam
Jayne Murray
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Jayne Murray, artist and director of Place Prospectors, who went to Druids Heath in 2017 to run a small arts project and ended up holding the missing history of an entire Birmingham estate. A resident had kept carrier bags full of pamphlets, newsletters and posters from decades of community activity. It took Jayne months just to put it in chronological ord
Aftab Rahman MBE
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Aftab Rahman, founder and chief executive of the Birmingham charity LegacyWM and a lifelong social activist. Aftab came to England from Sylhet aged six in 1976, one of the first few Bangladeshi families to settle here, and grew up in Lozells through the 1980s.This is a Birmingham life story that carries a wider history. Aftab talks about the myth of return
A Family History Guide & Finding Elizabeth Cronley
In this special solo episode, Carl Chinn opens up his own family history and turns it into a practical guide to tracing where you come from. He starts with the memories, a story passed down through the women of his family, from his great-grandmother, Granny Wood, to his nan, Lil Perry, to his mom Sylvie Chinn. It is the story of an Irish woman from County Kildare who married an English soldier at
Nicola Silk
Carl Chinn sits down with Nicola Silk, a Birmingham based producer and director whose life has been closely tied to television from the very beginning. She was one of the first children through the doors of the BBC Pebble Mill nursery, dancing with the Wombles on the lawn at four years old whilst her mum, a rare woman in 1960s television, worked in the studios nearby. From there, her story became,
Lyle Bignon
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Lyle Bignon, Birmingham's Night Time Economy Ambassador and a lifelong champion of the city's music and culture.Growing up in Balsall Heath as a third-generation Irish, second-generation French Brummie, Lyle found music everywhere, in Dublin record shops, in his father's violin workshop, and in the Irish traditional sessions of Pat Molloy. He talks about i
Siobhán Stevenson
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Dr Siobhán Stevenson, a Birmingham oral historian and audio producer who has spent her career capturing other people's life stories, from community radio volunteers to imprisoned people to the women who fought for gender equality in 1980s Birmingham. In this episode, the microphone turns the other way, and Siobhán tells her own story.She grew up in an Iris
Dr Karamat Iqbal
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Dr Karamat Iqbal, an educator and historian whose life crosses two worlds. Karamat grew up in a village of ten houses in Kashmir, walking hours to school across the ravines, until at barely a teenager he was put on a plane and arrived in Nechells to live in the same house where his father had once lodged.Together they trace the history of Kashmiri and Mirp
Rebecca McKinney
Carl Chinn sits down with Rebecca McKinney, an outstanding headteacher and Catholic schools inspector whose story begins in a big, fiercely close Irish family with roots in the centre of Dublin and the countryside of Kildare. From her mom's childhood in the Bordesley Green back-to-backs to early starts on her dad's market stall, Rebecca grew up among strong women, hard graft and parents who believ
Making A Historian with Carl Chinn
In this solo episode of Our Lives, Our Stories, Carl Chinn answered a question he has been asked all his life: what makes a historian? For years his answer was the books, the historical novels he read as a a child, from Robin Hood, William Tell and King Arthur to the writing of Rosemary Sutcliff and Henry Treece, which carried him from the Dark Ages to the Vikings, the Crusades and the mountains o
Father's Day Special
This Father's Day special, Carl Chinn and some of our guests over the passed year share the stories of the fathers and grandfathers who made them. From a working class bookmaker who played football on the rec and ran the school team because no teacher would, to a Jamaican-Irish poet whose dad quoted Shakespeare and Kipling off the cuff, from a German Jewish refugee who arrived aged 13 on the Kinde
Stacey Barnfield
Carl Chinn sits down with Stacey Barnfield, journalist, former editor of the Birmingham Post, photographer, and creator of the Colour Palette Company and Draw My City. Stacey grew up in Chelmsley Wood and Yardley, proud of both, and that sense of place runs through everything he has built.They talk about Stacey's path from print room runner at the Birmingham Post and Mail to deputy editor of the B
Kate Knowles
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Kate Knowles, editor of the Birmingham Dispatch, a reader-funded online paper covering the stories that matter most to the West Midlands.They talk about Kate's background, how she became a journalist and what it takes to run an independent local paperContent warning: This episode contains discussion of mental health struggles and some strong language. Plea
Toby Gorniak MBE
Carl Chinn is joined by educator, speaker, community activist and inspirational founder of the Gorniak Method, Toby Gorniak MBE, who grew up in Poland one of the stigmatised Roma community before arriving in Britain as a teenager seeking safety and a new beginning.They talk about Toby’s childhood experiences of discrimination and violence, the strength of family and importance of Roma culture, arr
Christina Longden
Carl Chinn is joined by author, community builder and his former student Christina Longden, who grew up in the mill town of Dukinfield, near Stalybridge, and was among the first in her family to go to university. Since then, she has spent her life uncovering the stories that others left behind.They talk about her growing up working class in the north of England; the class and accent prejudice she
Roifield Brown
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Roifield Brown, entrepreneur, podcaster, publican and proud Brummie. The son of Windrush generation parents, his Jamaican roots deeply affect him and he tells the remarkable story of his influential great-grandmother, known across her village simply as "Teacher."Roifield also shares his own journey from Birmingham to London, Canada, and California, and why
Adrian Goldberg
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Byline Times journalist and broadcaster, Adrian Goldberg, to talk identity, football and belonging.Adrian – the proud son of two migrants to Birmingham – tells the story of his father, a Jewish refugee from Germany who came to England via the Kindertransport during the Second World War, moved to Birmingham, where he met his Irish Catholic mother. They
Kiran Sahota
Carl Chinn is joined by fellow historian Dr Kiran Sahota, revealing her research into the vital roles of South Asian men and women in two world wars and how that heritage empowers today’s communities and young people.Growing up as a young Sikh Brummie in Handsworth, she was influenced by her grandparents and Kiran speaks about how her own family history - spanning the Partition of India, migration
John White
In this episode, Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with businessman and former Bullring trader, John White. They talk about growing up around Birmingham’s historic markets, the world of the barrow boys, and a life shaped by hard work, resilience, and community.John shares stories of his early life, leaving school at 13 to work alongside his father, and the characters who defined the old Bullrin
Robin Campbell
In this episode, Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with musician and UB40 co-founder, Robin Campbell. They talk about growing up in Birmingham, discovering reggae, and the journey from local gigs to global success with UB40.Robin shares stories of his early life, the people who shaped him, and the moments that defined the band, alongside reflections on community and music. Hosted on Acast. See
Sophie Martin-Canning
Carl Chinn is joined by author Sophie Martin-Canning to explore the personal history behind her novel, Kissed By The Angels, as well as the impact her father had on boxing. Sophie talks about growing up in a Brummie-Irish family and how her own childhood found its way onto the page. They speak about her father Paddy Martin and his legacy, as a man who influenced young boxers across Birmingham
Joe Lycett
In this episode, Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with comedian, artist and TV presenter, Joe Lycett. They talk family history, building a comedy career, creativity, and what it means to be a champion for Birmingham.Content warning: This episode contains some strong language. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Casey Bailey
In this episode, Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with writer, performer, educator and former Poet Laureate of Birmingham, Casey Bailey. They talk about Casey's childhood growing up in Nechells, the power of education, masculinity and class, as well as Casey's upcoming music, poetry and theatre projects. Content warning: This episode contains discussion of violence and suicide. Pleas
Becoming a Historian with Carl Chinn
In the first episode of 'Our Lives, Our Stories', Carl Chinn dives into his own life story. From his family history to his education, Chinn takes us through the influences behind his career as a social historian, his focus on the lives of the working classes and the importance of recording your own history and story. Follow @ourlivespod on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acas
Claire Holliday
Carl Chinn sits down in conversation with Claire Holliday to talk about her life story, motherhood and the power of community. Claire discusses her son Vinnie, who was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, and the campaign she led to fundraise for an accessible classroom at his school.Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion of childhood illness and the death of a child. Please do ta
Our Lives, Our Stories Trailer
Our Lives, Our Stories is a brand new podcast hosted by social historian, Carl Chinn.Carl will sit down in conversation with a range of guests, from grassroots campaigners to well known names and changemakers, focusing on their personal histories, achievements and the challenges that made them who they are.The series will also have standalone episodes with Carl providing deep-dives specific areas
