Putting Myself into History: Red, Red Robin: My Long Goodbye to Home. Professor Alison Light in Conversation with Dr Kate Kennedy

Professor Alison Light discusses her memoir Red, Red Robin with Dr Kate Kennedy, exploring memoir, memory and family history.

Literary and cultural historian Professor Alison Light talks about her latest memoir, Red, Red Robin: My Long Goodbye to Home, which looks back fifty years to her working-class childhood and departure for university. Drawing on personal sources from her toys to her teenage diaries, she reflects on postwar British life, nostalgia and what memoir can achieve that other historical narratives cannot. In conversation with Dr Kate Kennedy, she will discuss her experiments in life-writing, from uncovering Virginia Woolf's servants to charting her own family history over four centuries. The event is open to anyone interested in memoir, memory and family history, with no specialist knowledge required.