Ellie Munro

*shakes fist at train*

Large poster on one of the Sheffield train station platforms advertising EMR's new Aurora trains, with the slogan "Comfortable. Spacious. Connected. Sustainable."

Great to see the new EMR fleet has preserved some of the best loved features from the old trains, would have really missed that broken reservation system and the futile hunt for a working socket.

LGBTQ+ History Month: 'Scottish trans pasts, useable and otherwise?' | School of History, Classics & Archaeology | History Classics and Archaeology Celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month with Dr Sam Rutherford and learn more about the last 150 years of trans history in Scotland.

I am giving the Edinburgh Uni LGBTQ+ History Month lecture on the evening of 27 February, with the title 'Scottish Trans Pasts, Useable and Otherwise'. Details and link to register are here: hca.ed.ac.uk/updates-even... Do come along if you're in Edinburgh!

Excellent piece on Sheffield's Friends Of groups, covering histories, class divides and state withdrawal - all the voluntary sector studies classics.

The vicitimisation of trade union activists affects us all. Even more so when it's done *by our own union* 🤯

Sending much solidarity to @uniteucu.bsky.social & asking everyone to write to the GS to put an end to this. (and
@tuc.org.uk, please have a word...) #HandsOffMarie

#CharityHistory

Headline: 'Unite staff to strike over union victimisation' with the quote 'Across the trade union movement there is one thing we are all united on: that we do not act unlawfully towards our own. This issue will now bring together all voices across our movement. The victimisation of our Health and Safety rep and the threat to their job and livelihood must end immediately."

Regrettably our members will be commencing strike action from 9 February over the victimisation of our Health and Safety Officer.

uniteucu.wordpress.com/2026/01/28/u...

Save the date! Join us for an online archival workshop with @gpadmoreinstitute.bsky.social and @irrnews.bsky.social to explore the materials and histories of Black activist publishing in the UK from the 1970s: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/archival-w...

Bronze mother and child on circular stone plinth, the mother carrying her little boy on her back. Town Sqaure and clock tower to rear.

'Joyride', Franta Belsky, 1959. Belsky was commissioned by Stevenage Development Corporation to produce something symbolic for a recently created New Town (the Corporation took inspiration from the use of symbolic sculpture in the rebuilding of bombed Rotterdam).

Worked on this for Union Workers Union late last year. Hoping to do more on it.

Xoxo a disgruntled ex trade union employee.

🚀 It’s here.

Launching today: Learning from Big Local - a new website with 15 years of lessons from community-led change.

Explore research and stories from 150 hyper-local areas - this is your resource for community-led change.

Visit the website: https://bit.ly/4rbcuop

And Trans stories too - this is just lovely stuff (and - as always - #CharityHistory)

RNLI rejects union request amid redundancy consultation

A redundancy consultation opened by the RNLI is facing scrutiny from the trade union Unite, which claims that the charity’s workers are being “denied a voice” on proposed closure plans at one of its manufacturing sites.

🚨 REMINDER 🚨
Join us online *tomorrow* to hear from @deannalyncook.bsky.social about her research into Norman Manley’s Visits to Britain and Transnational Care in Postwar Britain!
Get your tickets below:
🔗 www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

#CharityHistory

Palestinian citizen of Israel wins UK asylum over ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ Exclusive: Refugee status granted despite attempt by former home secretary James Cleverly to block 26-year-old’s claim

🎉Our client has won! In a landmark case, he is the first Palestinian born in Israeli-occupied Palestine to be granted asylum in Britain, despite sinister ministerial intervention. 🧵[1/5]

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

A work in progress patchwork quilt made of old band tshirts, making a large rectangle. Some very shoddy sewing on show, uneven borders, total lack of planning, highly unskilled.

Overcommitting to projects since 1988

Image of council meeting with protestors and banners

Image of street march with banner at head proclaiming 'Clay Cross UDC will not implement the act'.

🚨 New on Substack, my post on Clay Cross's famous 1972 Rents Rebellion that resisted the Conservative Government's plans to raise council house rents: 'Clay Cross Council: ‘doing our job – and that’s to help the working class, the cream of the nation’
municipaldreams.substack.com/p/clay-cross...

Refocusing social work education on community work in Hong Kong: an urgent call Abstract. A dominant discourse in social work literature and textbooks is that community workers should take a proactive stance to pressure government offi

Johnson Chun-Sing Cheung writes in our January issue, on refocusing social work education to meet the pressures of contemporary social work, and how antagonistic relationships between stakeholders in the community and the establishment have heralded new social work approaches in Hong Kong #CDJ

Hundreds of staff leave Edinburgh University amid cuts drive According to the university, 345 of these departures were the result of a targeted voluntary severance (VS) scheme run by the institution in 2025.

Missing from the coverage of redundancies at Edinburgh: this was done in such a haphazard, uncoordinated way, there are now core teams who have gone from 5 people to 1 with no change in workload or pressure and huge loss in knowledge of institutional process. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2576321...

About Three days of challenge, change and collective action at the University of Glasgow, 30 June - 2 July 2026. Register today

The World Community Development Conference 2026 is coming to Glasgow next year! Join us from the 30th June - 2nd July 2026, at the James McCune Smith Learning Hub. We're very proud to be sponsoring the event, rooted in the values of justice, participation, and community empowerment buff.ly/MmfThqQ

I have to say, for a day with 5 overlapping meetings, that was a very good day.

Resistance and resilience: Digging into Edinburgh's history of tenant activism NEW research has highlighted the resistance and resilience among tenants in council housing in Edinburgh

A little preview of my forthcoming journal article on council tenants' resistance and resilience today in @scotnational.bsky.social. Massive thanks to @charlielynch.bsky.social for reaching out and giving my work a write-up.

www.thenational.scot/politics/257...

Ahh I think that might be the *other* SA Citadel just off the Sharrow Vale roundabout? That one is still functioning and quite modern looking, while this one which is right behind Cole Brothers and a bit of a wreck. Would have been open in the 70s though so it's possible you went to both!

Grade 2 listed front of Salvation Army Citadel redbrick building with Castle turret edging and some new arty swirly patterns painted colourfully on its metal shutters.

As I walked past it today and it's got some new paint on its shutters, here's the Sheffield Salvation Army Citadel building, now owned by the Council. As it happens this article about its renovation appeared a year ago today...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

#CharityHistory

Front cover of a guide. Illustration of King Kong holding a placard with the word BrumBook above his head dominates the picture. The ape is stood amongst iconic Birmingham buildings. To the right side is a circle with the cost of the publication - 65p. At the bottom of the page, figures look up at King Kong in horror. The figure on the far right holds a placard with the words - The Complete Guide to Birmingham on it.

#Birmingham Brum Book - a 1975 events and socials listing guide to the city featuring dear old King Kong on the front cover who had kept watch over the Manzoni Gardens in 1972. Ref - L 83.3 #LibraryofBham

The Videogame Tour of The British Museum This tour of the British Museum by writer and historian Sacha Coward will explore the ancient history behind your favourite videogames!

Fancy a trip around the British Museum with a weird nerd lecturing you about Videogames?!

This Friday I'm running an evening tour... it's the next closest experience to being locked in a lift with me for a couple of hours.

Marketing is my passion...

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-videog...

‘All the Kids Wanna Sniff Some Glue’: glue-sniffing, deindustrialization, and moral panic in 1980s Britain Abstract. This article analyses anxieties surrounding glue-sniffing in 1980s Britain and their entanglement with the era’s accelerated deindustrialization.

Brilliant new article by @malcolmrussell73.bsky.social on glue-sniffing panics, youth boredom and deindustrialising towns c. 1970s-80s, published in @mbhjournal.bsky.social

This began life as an exceptional MA dissertation at @uclhistory.bsky.social

Congrats Malcolm!

doi.org/10.1093/tcbh...

The 13th January 1691 marks the death of George Fox, the English founder of the religious group the Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers. It was just two years earlier that after years of persecution, with their members often being fined or imprisoned, the government